Expanding UCF’s Center for Humanities and Digital Research (CHDR) Infrastructure, Research, and Public Programming

FAIN: CHA-268801-20

University of Central Florida Board of Trustees (Orlando, FL 32816-8005)
Mark Kamrath (Project Director: May 2019 to present)

The construction of a digital humanities laboratory within a new campus building, and the purchase of equipment and software, server storage space, and other furnishings in order to foster collaborative humanities learning and research, digital preservation of collections, and public programming.

The Center for Humanities and Digital Research at the University of Central Florida seeks to expand its current facilities, research, and programming. The direct expenditures grant and the required matching funds will enable the addition of a digital humanities collaboratory in the newly constructed Trevor Colbourn Hall and update all our equipment to support collaborative research, digital preservation and access, and public programming. The grant will help increase the number of faculty and students learning design, programming, and digital archiving skills; generate new collaborative projects and scholarship; and accelerate institutional and public humanities programming. Plans for raising funds are closely tied to UCF’s IGNITE fundraising campaign and the College of Arts and Humanities’ goal within this campaign of raising $20 million by 2020. With the help of the Provost’s Office, the campaign plans to identify specific business and private donors.

Associated Products

CHDR Presents Dr. Alex Burtzos (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: CHDR Presents Dr. Alex Burtzos
Abstract: Dr. Alex Burtzos, endowed chair of the music composition area in the School of Performing Arts, discussed some of his most recent compositions, including cross-disciplinary collaborations with singer-songwriters, poets, and improv comics.
Author: Alex Burtzos
Date: 09/20/2023
Location: 325 Trevor Colbourn Hall
Primary URL: http://chdr.cah.ucf.edu
Primary URL Description: UCF Center for Humanities and Digital Research (CHDR)

CHDR Presents Dr. Florin Mihai (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: CHDR Presents Dr. Florin Mihai
Abstract: Dr. Florin Mihai, Professor, TESOL Program, delivered his talk "Simulation Technology in Teacher Preparation Programs: Expanding English Learner Teaching Skills through Digital Badges" The presentation will focus on an English-learner (EL) training model that led to earning a digital badge in a federally funded program called Micro-credentialing of English Learner Teaching Skills (MELTS). To earn a digital badge, participants were required to complete an online module, participate in coached skill practice, and demonstrate mastery of a targeted EL-teaching skill. The coaching and skill mastery demonstration were completed through TLE TeachLivE™, which provided a virtual classroom with virtual avatars representing ELs at different levels of language proficiency. Qualitative and quantitative data collected throughout the MELTS program will also be presented and discussed.
Author: Florin Mihai, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures
Date: 10/18/2023
Location: 325 Trevor Colbourn Hall
Primary URL: http://chdr.cah.ucf.edu
Primary URL Description: UCF Center for Humanities and Digital Research (CHDR)

CHDR Presents Dr. Stephen M. Fiore (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: CHDR Presents Dr. Stephen M. Fiore
Abstract: Dr. Stephen M. Fiore, Director of the Cognitive Sciences Laboratory and Pegasus Professor, delivered his talk: "Reflections on Transdisciplinary Research: A Field Study on Knowledge Building in Collaborative Problem Solving" Solving today's most challenging problems requires innovative, integrated breakthroughs and novel solutions that transcend individual disciplines, reaching a deeper level of knowledge integration. However, achieving such integration through teamwork is challenging due to cognitive and collaborative dynamics that can arise when interacting on complex problems. To address this, theory and methods from varied disciplines need to be adapted and integrated to study their efficacy in learning and performance when doing transdisciplinary research. In this presentation I describe an NSF funded field study of transdisciplinary teamwork focused on coastal resilience in the Chesapeake Bay region of the USA. First, to promote collaborative learning, a team of faculty coaches guided a diverse set of graduate students from the natural and physical coastal, marine and environmental sciences, engineering, design, and social and economic sciences. Second, transdisciplinary pedagogies were adapted to enhance student understanding on collaborative knowledge building for complex problems. Here, we emphasized the development of conceptual models capable of capturing system level problems as well as integrating diverse disciplinary perspectives. Third, to foster individual and team learning, an intervention focusing on reflection in teamwork processes was used to ensure students monitor both task of transdisciplinary problem solving, as well as the teamwork processes engaged while collaborating. Findings are discussed in the context of changes in perceptions in teamwork as well as in the nature of reflections on teamwork offered.
Author: Stephen M. Fiore
Date: 11/16/2023
Location: 325 Trevor Colbourn Hall
Primary URL: http://chdr.cah.ucf.edu
Primary URL Description: UCF Center for Humanities and Digital Research (CHDR)

CHDR Presents Sarah Bousfield, Luci Meir, Katherine Thurlow, and Melissa Rosero-Barros, Veterans Legacy Program (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: CHDR Presents Sarah Bousfield, Luci Meir, Katherine Thurlow, and Melissa Rosero-Barros, Veterans Legacy Program
Abstract: VLP researchers Sarah Bousfield, Luci Meir, Katherine Thurlow, and Melissa Rosero-Barros delivered their presentation: "Broadening Horizons: Experiencing Plains Indian Memories" with an introduction from Dr. Amy Giroux
Author: Sarah Bousfield, Luci Meir, Katherine Thurlow, and Melissa Rosero-Barros,
Date: 01/31/2024
Location: 325 Trevor Colborn Hall
Primary URL: http://chdr.cah.ucf.edu
Primary URL Description: UCF Center for Humanities and Digital Research (CHDR)

CHDR Presents Dr. Bill Fogarty, Department of English (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: CHDR Presents Dr. Bill Fogarty, Department of English
Abstract: Dr. Bill Fogarty, Assistant Professor, English Department, delivered his talk: "Forms of Poetry, Forms of Speech, Forms of Knowledge." Dr. Bill Fogarty presented an overview of his work which explores the relationships between modern and contemporary English-language poetry and real-world experiences and phenomena. He discussed his recently published book, a study of later-twentieth and twenty-first century English-language poetry that brings to light the social and political dynamics when different forms of everyday speech from marginalized communities create various forms of poetry, from the traditional to the experimental. Dr. Fogarty also discussed his current book project, Queer Light: Forms of Knowledge in Contemporary American Poetry. This work-in-progress examines poems by queer poets who represent some of the most prominent practitioners of the genre in order to understand how forms of poetry can express and even produce forms of knowledge, intelligence, and perception unique to queer life.
Author: Bill Fogarty
Date: 02/01/2024
Location: 325 Trevor Colbourn Hall
Primary URL: http://chdr.cah.ucf.edu
Primary URL Description: UCF Center for Humanities and Digital Research (CHDR)

CHDR Presents Chrissy Kolaya and Nathan Holic, Department of English and Department of Writing and Rhetoric (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: CHDR Presents Chrissy Kolaya and Nathan Holic, Department of English and Department of Writing and Rhetoric
Abstract: Chrissy Kolaya, Assistant Professor, English Department, and Nathan Holic, Senior Lecturer, Department of Writing and Rhetoric, discussed their ongoing graphic fiction collaboration.
Author: Chrissy Kolaya and Nathan Holic
Date: 02/15/2024
Location: 325 Trevor Colbourn Hall
Primary URL: http://chdr.cah.ucf.edu
Primary URL Description: UCF Center for Humanities and Digital Research (CHDR)

CHDR Presents Dr. Loreta Huber, Professor, Vilnius University Kaunas Faculty, Lithuania (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: CHDR Presents Dr. Loreta Huber, Professor, Vilnius University Kaunas Faculty, Lithuania
Abstract: Loreta Huber delivered her talk: "Relationships in the Digital Age: Self-Disclosure and Communication in Social Networking Sites." The event was co-sponsored by the Department of English and the Texts and Technology Ph.D. Program. Self-disclosure is the process of revealing personal, intimate information about oneself to others, and individuals getting to know each other. It is considered a key aspect of developing closeness and intimacy with others and maintaining relationships on social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Tinder. Self-disclosure is closely related to social penetration theory, as it states that this process depends on the disclosure both in terms of depth, stages of penetration, and breadth as well as rewards and costs rationale. Dr. Loreta Huber is a Professor of Inter-Cultural Communication & Translation at Vilnius University Kaunas Faculty. She has experience of over 29 years of teaching at universities and training institutions in Lithuania, United Kingdom, Israel and Germany, where she also held academic positions in the areas of Cross-cultural communication, migration, Audiovisual translation (AVT), Media accessibility, literary and gender studies. Her research interests are semiotics of culture, gender studies, Audiovisual translation, human centered AI,
Author: Loreta Huber
Date: 03/07/2024
Location: 325 Trevour Colbourn Hall
Primary URL: http://chdr.cah.ucf.edu
Primary URL Description: UCF Center for Humanities and Digital Research (CHDR)

CHDR Presents Dr. Ursula Lehmkuhl, Professor of International History (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: CHDR Presents Dr. Ursula Lehmkuhl, Professor of International History
Abstract: Ursula Lehmkuhl delivered her talk, "Narrative Tropes as a Transatlantic Bonding Instrument: Political Liberalism and the 'Revolutionsnarrativ' in the Letters and Memories of the German-American Bohn Family, 1852-2005" The talk will present a “reading” and analysis of the collective life story of the Bohn family based on the intersected stories told by four closely linked layers of documents produced by different members of the family at different times: (1) the letters written by the immigrant in the 1850s and 1860s, (2) the childhood memories of the two youngest sons in the form of short essays written in the 1950s on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Johann Heinrich Carl’s immigration which are now part of the two volume family history compiled in 1982, (3) historical accounts about the family and the village written by Roland Wehrmann in the late 1950s and 1960s and translated by Duane Manson, the American family historian in the late 1980s, and (4) short summaries and excerpts of the letters clipped to the original letters written by the owner of the letter collection, Roland Wehrmann, in the 1990s as part of his efforts and interest in reconstructing and writing the family history. The letters, the family history and the reading summaries are elements of a multi-layered temporally and spatially interwoven collective family history based on memories of the political active and engaged “pater familias”. This family history constructs the image of a political active family with strong liberal and social democratic political orientations, covering a time period of almost 150 years. The three layers of historical documents allow the reconstruction of the diachronicity and multi-locality of self-representation and identity construction through shared memories. Furthermore, on the basis of these documents it is possible to show how memory influenced the narrative structure of the stories told and thus to demonstrate how the past is dealt with in the everyday
Author: Ursula Lehmkuhl
Date: 03/12/2024
Location: 325 Trevor Colbourn Hall
Primary URL: http://chdr.cah.ucf.edu
Primary URL Description: UCF Center for Humanities and Digital Research (CHDR)

UCF Department of English Symposium: Shifting Borders and Bodies (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: UCF Department of English Symposium: Shifting Borders and Bodies
Author: Department of English
Abstract: This student symposium featured 6 panels on various topics: Panel 1: "Colonized Bodies in Conflict Panel 2: "Victorian Voices" Panel 3: "De/Re-extinctions" Panel 4: "Barriers, Boundaries, and Women's Bodies" Panel 5: Identity Without Limits" Panel 6: "Finding and Crossing Borders"
Date Range: 02/29/2024
Location: 325 Trevor Colbourn Hall
Primary URL: http://chdr.cah.ucf.edu
Primary URL Description: UCF Center for Humanities and Digital Research (CHDR)

Zora 2024 The Reunion (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: Zora 2024 The Reunion
Author: Julian Chambliss
Author: Scot French
Abstract: Curated by Michigan State University historian and Afrofuturism scholar Dr. Julian Chambliss, the cycle opened in 2020 with the framing question: “What is Afrofuturism?” Scholars first adopted the term in the 1990s to describe works of Black science fiction that explored contemporary themes and concerns in the context of modern technoculture. Today, Dr. Chambliss notes, the term Afrofuturism is more broadly interpreted to include “Black speculative practice” from any creative or intellectual realm – art, literature, music, history, economics, social and political thought – that critiques the status quo and projects a liberatory vision for the future. “At the core of Afrofuturism,” he explains, “is an emphasis on trying to create a system that’s more equitable with a core goal of collective care for everyone.” Having explored Afrofuturism through Sound (2021), Vision (2022), and Spirit (2023), the 2020-2024 conference cycle concludes with an exploration of Afrofuturism in the realm of Space – virtual, real, and imagined. “By concluding our conversations around the examination of space,” Dr. Chambliss explains, “we align our concerns with contemporary debates about land, community, and the future that have brought a renewed focus on Eatonville in recent months. The struggle over the Robert Hungerford School property can be read as a return to the mission and vision offered by the creation of Eatonville. Celebrated as a way to ‘solve the great race problem’ by its founders, Eatonville has long stood as a space of liberation for Black Americans. While we quickly imagine the ‘space’ of Afrofuturism being connected to an expansive, cosmic imagination, creating local spaces that nurture our being is the core to understanding the space of Afrofuturism.”
Date Range: January 24-27, 2024
Location: Eatonville, Florida
Primary URL: https://zorafestival.org/2024-afrofuturism-conference/
Primary URL Description: None
Secondary URL: https://zorafestival.org/2024-afrofuturism-conference/
Secondary URL Description: None

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