Dear all, Apologies for cross-posting.

Please find below the details of next week's CeRch seminar: They're reading our minds: humanities research and digital thinking with CENDARI

Kate Macdonald (Ghent University) and Alessandro Salvador (University of Trento), Visiting Researchers at the Centre for e-Research, King's College London

Date: Tuesday, 26th November, 2013 from 6:15 PM to 7:30 PM (GMT) Location: Anatomy Museum Space, 6th Floor, King's College London (Strand campus) http://www.kcl.ac.uk/campuslife/campuses/strand/Strand.aspx

Attendance is free and open to all, but registration is requested: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cerch-seminar-theyre-reading-our-minds-humaniti...

All the best, Valentina Asciutti

Abstract:

The Collaborative EuropeaN Digital Archive Infrastructure (CENDARI) provides and facilitates access to existing archives and resources in Europe for the study of medieval and modern European history (specifically the First World War period) through the development of an ‘enquiry environment’. As part of this project, the Centre for e-Research is currently hosting two visiting researchers: Kate Macdonald and Alessandro Salvador, who are investigating how CENDARI can assist their own research work. At tonight's seminar Kate Macdonald and Alessandro Salvador will discuss their ongoing research, within the context of CENDARI.

Kate Macdonald’s presentation will outline a methodology and early findings from reading British popular fiction magazines published for the entirety of the First World War, looking for depictions of the war-wounded ex-soldier, and the civilian who had been impaired by disease, congenital causes, or industrial injury. This stream of cultural production at this time has never been investigated before, yet it presents important evidence for how the ordinary reader regarded, or was expected to regard, physical impairment at a time when the demographics of the physically impaired were changing dramatically, and new technologies were changing treatments, rehabilitation, and living with impairment. This is part of a wider project investigating such depictions during and after WW1 and up to 1939, exploring the hypothesis that some kinds of disability were more deserving than others. She will discuss her role in the CENDARI project as a case study and guinea-pig for exploring humanities research processes.

Alessandro Salvador: My contribution will focus on the main topic of my research and the reasons and goals of my current work within the CENDARI project. I am currently in the final stage of a research about demobilization and reinstatement into civilian life of the Italian-speaking soldiers enlisted in the Austro-Hungarian army during World War I. In particular, I researched the activities of the Italian government in managing a group of Italian-nationals belonging to an enemy State within a complex series of events that started in 1915 and finished in 1921. This topic represented a challenge for archival research, as the sources are spread throughout archives in Italy, Russia, Austria and UK. This brought to the idea of creating an online research guide in which archival information can be gathered and made public for researchers needing to access sources on this topic. Thus, my current work mostly deals, as pilot project, with Italian sources. My contribution will give a brief introduction to the topic and the problematic issues in order to explain the kind of data I am collecting, the way of organizing them and what advantages I expect that this project will offer to researchers.

Bios:

Kate Macdonald teaches British literary history and poetry at Ghent University, and is the author of several books, chapters and articles on British publishing culture from 1880 to 1950.

Alessandro Salvador studied contemporary history in Trieste and Trento, obtaining his Ph.D. in 2010. After a period as exchange scholar (DAAD Program) at the Freie Universitaet Berlin, he obtained a post-doc position at the University of Trento. Currently he is part of a research group on WWI involving the University and the Bruno Kessler Foundation in Trento.