Recovery Hub for American Women Writers

FAIN: HAA-290317-23

Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville (Edwardsville, IL 62026-0001)
Jessica DeSpain (Project Director: June 2022 to present)
Margaret Smith (Co Project Director: January 2023 to present)

The continued development and implementation of a digital recovery hub focused on surfacing the work of American women writers and promoting scholarship on their literary contributions.

The project team is seeking a Level II Digital Humanities Advancement Grant to fully implement a digital recovery hub (piloted under a Level I DHAG awarded in 2020) that will operate as a network of scholars grounded in diverse feminist and decolonizing methods under the umbrella of the Society for the Study of American Women Writers (SSAWW). The hub provides a much-needed infrastructure for project consultation and technical assistance for scholars engaged in the recovery of works by American women writers from all periods. The hub’s broader goals are to: 1) reinvigorate digital scholarship as a recovery method by extending traditional editing projects with network mapping, spatial analysis, and the distant reading of massive datasets; 2) provide support for projects at various levels; 3) act as a feminist peer reviewing body for in-process work; and 4) build a community of use to help recovery projects reach broader audiences through SSAWW’s membership and journal Legacy.