The digital humanities have challenged all disciplines of art history to engage with new interdisciplinary methodologies, learn new tools, and reevaluate their roles within academia. As a consequence, art historians occupy a new position in relation to the object of study. Museums have been equally transformed. The possibility of creating virtual realities for lost or inaccessible monuments poses a new relationship between viewer and object in gallery spaces. Digital-humanities interventions in museums even allow us to preserve the memory of endangered global-heritage sites which cease to exist or are inaccessible (such as the lost Great Arch of Palmyra, reconstructed at monumental scale with a 3D printer).

Digital Humanities for Academic and Curatorial Practice is a public conference presented by the Rome Art History Network that will take place May 23–24, 2018, at the Biblioteca Angelica di Roma and the American Academy in Rome. The conference aims to investigate the role of digital humanities by promoting a dialogue about the protection of cultural-heritage sites, museology, the history of art, and the digitalization of Big Data. In particular, the speakers will consider whether the role of digital humanities is to “reveal” evidence through empirical display or to “reconstruct” the original experience of the object to engage viewers? Can we propose a reconciliation between these two “poles”?

Keynote speakers will include Caroline Bruzelius (Professor of Art History, Duke University), Valeria Vitale (Research Fellow, University of London), Bissera Pentcheva (Professor of Medieval Art, Stanford University, and 2018 Rome Prize Fellow), and Allison Levy (Digital Scholarship Editor, Brown University).

The conference is organized by Angelica Federici (University of Cambridge and RAHN) and Joseph Williams (Duke University and 2018 Rome Prize Fellow) and coordinated by Matteo Piccioni (Sapienza - Università di Roma and RAHN).

23 May 2018
2:00–6:00pm
Biblioteca Angelica
Piazza S. Agostino, 8
Rome

24 May 2018
2:00–6:00pm
American Academy in Rome
Via Angelo Masina, 5
Rome

The event will be held in English and Italian. On May 24, you can watch it live at livestream.com/aarome.

This conference is made possible in part by the Fellows’ Project Fund of the American Academy in Rome.