V/AR-DHI Convergence at MLA and AHA 2019

In January 2019 we were able to take advantage of the fact that the American Historical Association (AHA) and the Modern Language Association (MLA) were both meeting in Chicago to create cross-over events between the two organizations around Virtual and Augmented Reality in the Digital Humanities. These two sessions were organized by participants of the V/ARDHI Institute, and included members of the Institute as well as other colleagues working on related work. The two sessions were advertised across the two conferences, and collaborators met up informally at the conference as well to catch up with one another. At the conference we also had follow-up conversations about our Year 2 grant plans.

The MLA session was entitled 155: Critical Approaches to Virtual and Augmented Reality and took place at 7:00 PM–8:15 PM on Thursday, Jan 3, 2019. It was organized by Victoria Szabo, Project Director for the V/AR-DHI project and also one of the Transdisciplinary Connections: Digital Humanities Forum committee members. It included a presentation by V/AR-DHI Participant Micki Kaufman.

Session Info:
Presiding: Victoria Szabo

  • Let’s Talk about Death: Virtual Agents, Sensate Epistemologies, and the Emergence of a New Sensory Hermeneutics, Asimina Ino Nikolopoulou, Grinnell C
  • The Yellow Line and the Experience of Militarized Vision as Augmented Reality, Katherine Kelp-Stebbins, U of Oregon
  • Augmented Reality and the Humanities: Augmenting the Text, Tamara F. O’Callaghan, Northern Kentucky U and Andrea R. Harbin, State U of New York, Cortland
  • Can Virtual Reality Be Used to Teach Empathy?, Amanda Licastro, Stevenson U

The AHA session was organized by Micki Kaufmann, one of the VARDHI participants. AHA Session 160 took place on Saturday, January 5, 2019: 8:30 AM-10:00 AM.

Papers:

  • · Participatory Creation of Immersive First Peoples’ Spaces in Australia, Rachel Hendery, University of Western Sydney; Kate Richards, University of Western Sydney
  • Quantifying Kissinger: Contrasting Dimensions of US Foreign Policy, 1968–77, Micki Kaufman, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York
  • Teaching Virtual Reality in the Humanities, Amanda Licastro, Stevenson University
  • Re)Playing the Past in 3D: Interactive History through Integrating GIS, Procedural Modeling, and Gaming Technologies, Austin Mason, Carleton College
  • Digital Queer Witnessing: Testimony, Contested Virtual Heritage, and the Apartheid Archive in Soweto, Johannesburg, Angel David Nieves, San Diego State University [did not attend]
  • Embodied Storytelling: STEM and Humanities Collaboration in the Classroom, Lynn Ramey, Vanderbilt University
  • Borders and Panoramas in Early Modern Portugal: Integrating Architectural and National-Scale Spatial Analyses with 3D GIS, Edward Triplett, Duke University

Website for shared materials at http://sites.duke.edu/vrar

The group also met up to discuss their projects and future plans together while in the city;