The Forum for Classics, Libraries, and Scholarly Communications (FCLSC), an affiliated interest group of the Society for Classical Studies, is sponsoring Ancient MakerSpaces 2021 at the SCS/AIA Annual Meeting on Saturday, Jan. 9, 2021 from 9am to 3pm CST.
It is nearly time for the Annual Joint Meeting of the Society for Classical Studies and the Archaeological Institute of America, and the Forum for Classics, Libraries, and Scholarly Communications (FCLSC) is excited to be sponsoring the fourth Ancient MakerSpaces (AMS2021) workshop at the SCS/AIA annual meeting.
Ancient MakerSpaces is an all-day “workshop” meant to bring attention to projects working at the intersection of Digital Humanities and ancient world studies. Almost all research, scholarly communication, and teaching in ancient studies today bears the imprint of digital technology in some way, yet the growing number of projects and the rapid rate of technological development combine to present a distinct challenge for scholars who are interested in taking advantage of these advances. Since 2017 AMS has been a space at the SCS/AIA annual meeting for students and scholars to interact with experienced digital humanists presenting on and demonstrating a variety of digital techniques and digital projects of broad application for teaching, research and publication. AMS2021 runs from 9:00am until 3:00pm on Saturday, Jan. 9, 2021.
AMS2021 organizers Aaron Hershkowitz (Institute for Advanced Study), Rachel Starry (UC Riverside), and Natalie Susmann (MIT) have done an incredible job in this challenging year to bring a full and varied line up to the 2021 Annual Meeting. AMS2021 is broken up into three thematic sessions: Interdisciplinary Digital Methodologies (9:00-10:35 CST), Pedagogy and Public Digital Scholarship (10:45-12:15 CST), and Digital Scholarship and the Ancient World: Current Challenges and Future Questions (1:15-2:10 CST). The full schedule appears at the end of this announcement.
This year the format will be slightly altered from that of past iterations of AMS, in order to accommodate the virtual setting of the meeting. Each of the morning sessions will start with presentations, which are made up of 5-minute lightning talks and 10-minute introductions to active demonstration projects. After a brief break there will be a Q&A and discussion period for all of the presentations in that session. The final portion of each morning session will be dedicated to project demonstrations. During this time breakout rooms dedicated to each of the demonstrations will be opened so that presenters can lead audience members through the use of their resource or project while answering questions.
The first afternoon session (Digital Scholarship and the Ancient World: Current Challenges and Future Questions: 1:15-2:10 CST) will begin with a recap of the morning session followed by three additional presentations and a Q&A period for those presentations. The programmed portion of AMS 2021 will conclude with a discussion of the themes that have emerged over the course of the day as well as of some pressing topics and questions in the digital scholarship of the ancient world, led by the AMS organizers.
The final afternoon session is designed to stand in for a coffee hour planned for the in-person meeting. The goal for the “digital coffee hour” is to provide a venue for small group discussion and networking. The format is designed to be flexible and respond to participant interest, and could consist of breakout rooms, a large group discussion, or some mix of the two.
AMS2021 FAQ
If you have never been to AMS — and even if you have, everything is different this year! — here are a few answers to FAQ you may have:
- You must be registered for the AIA/SCS meeting to attend AMS, but there is no separate registration required for AMS itself. You can join the AMS session at any time through the conference platform.
- You do not need to stay for the whole event: please come and go as you please. Just bear in mind that the separation of presentations from Q&A and demonstrations may make it helpful to stay for the entirety of a particular session, even if your interest is mostly in one project or presentation.
- No previous experience with Digital Humanities is necessary to participate—we welcome everyone who is interested in or curious about this fast-growing area.
- Both morning sessions will have Breakouts to allow for more in-depth demonstration, discussion, and Q&A for showcased projects.
- Participants are encouraged to use the AIA/SCS conference hashtag #AIASCS or the AMS hashtag #AncMakers on social media, and AMS organizers will be watching the #AncMakers tag for questions to bring into discussion sessions. However, please respect presenters’ wishes if they indicate that they do not want their talk tweeted.
The first AMS workshop was a collaboration of David M. Ratzan and Patrick Burns at the 2017 SCS/AIA meeting. At the 2020 SCS/AIA Annual Meeting the FCLSC voted to become the sponsoring body for the workshop and AMS2021 is the first organized under its aegis. Schedules and descriptions of previous AMS workshops may be found here: AMS 2017 / AMS 2018 / AMS 2019.
Schedule:
Morning Session 1: “Interdisciplinary Digital Methodologies” (9:00-10:35am CST)
- (9:05am) AMS Welcome + “Digital Epigraphy for the Blind” (Aaron Hershkowitz, The Institute for Advanced Study)
- (9:15am) “The Virtual Garden: Didactic Reconstruction and Extended Experientiality in the Villa of Livia Frescoes” (Nicholas Plank, Indiana University; David Massey, Indiana University; Matthew Brennan, Indiana University)
- (9:20am) “Digital Survey and Mapping with Google Earth: Land Transport of Quarried Stone for Temple Construction at Selinunte, Sicily in the Archaic and Classical Periods” (Andrea Samz-Pustol, Bryn Mawr College)
- (9:25am) “Mapping Victory Networks in the Ancient Mediterranean” (Molly Kuchler, Bryn Mawr College)
- (9:30am) Demonstration: “Shedding Light and Spilling Oil: Forgery, Identification, and Provenance Determination of Ceramic Artifacts through the Case Study of the CLARC Collection Oil Lamps” (Savannah Bishop, Brandeis University)
- (9:40am) Demonstration: “Reconstructing Cultural Transmission and Evolution through Genetic Models” (Anne-Catherine Schaaf, College of the Holy Cross; Augusta Holyfield, College of the Holy Cross; Natalie DiMattia, College of the Holy Cross; Luke Giuntoli, College of the Holy Cross; Sophia Sarro, College of the Holy Cross)
- (9:50am) short break
- (9:55am) Q&A and Breakout Project Demos for Morning Session #1
Morning Session 2: “Pedagogy and Public Digital Scholarship” (10:45am-12:15pm CST)
- (10:45am) Recap of Morning Session #1 + “Hands-on Digital Archaeology in the Classroom” (Natalie Susmann, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
- (11:00am) “From Digging to Digital: Preserving and Displaying the Past” (Ivo van der Graaff, University of New Hampshire; Otto Luna, University of New Hampshire)
- (11:05am) “Printing the Past: A Hands-on Workshop for STEP Students Integrating Classical Studies with 3D-Printing Technology” (Angela Commito, Union College; Sean Tennant, Union College)
- (11:10am) Demonstration: “Trapezites: An Ancient Currency Conversion Website” (Giuseppe Carlo Castellano, University of Texas at Austin)
- (11:20am) Demonstration: “ToposText: Assembling a Public Digital Toolkit for Greco-Roman Antiquity” (Brady Kiesling, ToposText)
- (11:30am) short break
- (11:35am) Q&A and Breakout Project Demos for Morning Session #2
Midday Break (12:15-1:15pm CST)
Afternoon Session: “Digital Scholarship and the Ancient World: Current Challenges and Future Questions” (1:15-2:10pm CST)
- (1:15pm) Recap of Morning Session #2 + “The Digital Archaeology Toolkit” (Rachel Starry, University of California, Riverside)
- (1:25pm) “Running Reality” (Garth Henning, Running Reality)
- (1:35pm) “In(ternet) Solidarity: Sportula and the Virtual Classics Community”
- (1:45pm) Moderated Discussion
Coffee Hour: Informal networking and conversation about digital scholarship (2:15-3:00pm CST)
The schedule and other information can be found at this site: https://rachelstarry.github.io/AMS2021/.
