Faculty and administrators gave short presentations on projects in the digital humanities yesterday during a visit by William Adams, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — William D. “Bro” Adams, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, was on campus yesterday to meet with Brown faculty and administrators and hear about some of the work happening at Brown in public and digital humanities.

The topics were of particular interest to Adams. In January the NEH announced an initiative called “The Common Good: Humanities in the Public Square,” which aims to demonstrate the critical role humanities scholarship can play in our public life. The initiative is one that “resonates well at Brown,” said President Christina Paxson. “Brown has a great tradition of taking ideas and promoting them around the world. Efforts in the public and digital humanities offer some of the best examples of that.”

Andrew Ashton, associate University librarian for digital technologies, discussed a variety of efforts to expand digital scholarship in the humanities through Brown’s libraries. Such projects include the Modernist Journals Project and the Rockefeller Library’s Digital Scholarship Lab.

Massimo Riva, chair of Italian studies, discussed his pioneering work in the digital humanities, including the Virtual Humanities Lab. The VHL, which launched in 2004 with an NEH grant, aims to develop digital resources for the study and teaching of Italian literature, history, and culture from the Middle Ages to the 21st century. Riva also discussed his work with Brown computer scientist Andy van Dam to digitize the Garibaldi Panorama, a painting measuring 4-1/2 feet tall and over 270 feet long.

Elias Muhanna, assistant professor of Islamic studies, recently launched the Digital Islamic Humanities Project. Over the past few years, tremendous text databases of Islamic literature have made their way online. Muhanna’s project — a conference series and accompanying web resources — aims to help scholars better navigate these kinds of digital tools.

Susan Smulyan, professor of American Studies and director of the John Nicholas Brown Center, discussed Brown’s master’s program in public humanities. Launched in 2005 with support from the NEH, the program has awarded closure master’s degrees to 83 students and degrees en route to the Ph.D. to 15 more. Graduates are working at a variety of state agencies in Rhode Island and elsewhere, as well as taking positions at the NEH.

“The work you’re doing is very interesting to me,” Adams said at the close of the discussion. “I really appreciated this exchange.”