InkCode: a DH2 Summer School for Ancient to Early Modern History
Organized by Scuola Normale Superiore in collaboration with Stanford University and University of California Los Angeles, the school is funded by the PNRR through the MERITA, the network for talent project*.
Date: June 29 – July 3, 2025
Location: San Miniato, PI and Florence
Total hours: 40
Max participants: 18
Language: English
Application deadline: 7 June 2025
Target audience: Undergraduate/Master’s/PhD students and early-career researchers
Application form
InkCode: a DH2 Summer School for Ancient to Early Modern History will combine theoretical presentations, hands-on technical workshops, and collaborative project development sessions.
Each morning will feature keynote presentations from faculty experts from the three participating institutions and other invited experts, highlighting successful applications of computational methods to pre-modern research questions. In the afternoons, experienced digital humanities practitioners will lead training sessions in a variety of computational methods for historical research.
These afternoon sessions will focus on:
- Critical data visualization and network analysis (led by Nicole Coleman, Research Director for Humanities + Design at Stanford's Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis, CESTA);
- Geospatial visualization techniques for historical mobility (Dr. Luca Scholz, Senior Lecturer in DH at Manchester University);
- Text mining and citation studies (Mikko Tolonen, Professor of Digital Humanities at the University of Helsinki);
- Computational approaches to ancient texts and uses of AI for humanities data structuring (Dr. Allen Romano, AI division at Khan Academy).
The afternoon workshops will train participants in collaborative digital humanities research with hands-on activities in which mixed institutional teams will apply the newly learned methods to sample datasets, developing miniature research projects that showcase the possibilities of these approaches.
Additional activities will address digital mapping, network visualizations, and 3d representation in a variety of pre-modern contexts, all areas in which Professors Giovanna Ceserani (Stanford) and Chris Johanson (UCLA) have significant expertise through their respective digital projects. Drawing on Professor Stefania Pastore’s (Scuola Normale Superiore) expertise in cross-cultural encounters and religious history in the early modern Mediterranean, participants will also explore how digital methods can illuminate historical cultural exchange, conflict, and hybridization processes.
While most sessions (29 June - 2 July) will take place at the Fondazione Santa Chiara in San Miniato, the final day (3 July) will be hosted at the Stanford University in Florence, featuring graduate participants' presentations in the morning and a final concluding roundtable in the afternoon.
Programme
June 29th, Sunday (Fondazione Santa Chiara, San Miniato)
12.30 Lunch
15.00 Introduction to the School
Giovanna Ceserani | Stanford University
Stefania Pastore | Scuola Normale Superiore
15.30 Our Summer School Network
Nicole Coleman | Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis
17.00 Coffee Break
17.30 Workshop 1
Nicole Coleman
The Network Revolution
June 30th, Monday (Fondazione Santa Chiara, San Miniato)
9.30 Morning Conversation I
Giovanna Ceserani
A World Made by Travel: Digital Scholarship
Nicole Coleman
Visualizing and Publishing for Digital Humanities
13.00 Light Lunch
15.00 Workshop 2
Mikko Tolonen | Helsinki University:
Working with Texts in Digital Humanities
July 1st, Tuesday (Fondazione Santa Chiara, San Miniato)
9.00 Workshop 3
Luca Scholz | Manchester University
Spatial History and Geospatial Methods Project
13.30 Light Lunch
15.00 Presentations
Barbara Borg, Consuelo Manetta, Eleonora Iacopini
The INscribed city: urban structures and interaction in imperial ROME
Federica Favino
The Borrelli Galaxy
Cristina Dondi
Tracking the movement of books over time and reconstructing dispersed book collections
Stefania Pastore
Diasporic Renaissance
In dialogue with Rowan Dorin
19.00 Tutoring Hour
Nicole Coleman
July 2nd, Wednesday Fondazione Santa Chiara, San Miniato
9.30 Morning Conversation II
Chris Johanson | UCLA
RomeLab
Giuseppe Rignanese | Scuola Normale Superiore
GIS and the ancient city of Agrigento: towards a digital ekklesiasterion
13.00 Light Lunch
15.00 Workshop 3
Allen Romano | Khan Academy
AI & Humanities Data
19.00 Tutoring Hour
Nicole Coleman
July 3rd, Thursday (Florence Stanford Center, Firenze)
11.00 Students’ lighnting talks
13.00 Lunch
15.00 Final faculty-led round table discussion
Giovanna Ceserani | Stanford University, Nicole Coleman | Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis, Chris Johanson | UCLA, Stefania Pastore | Scuola Normale Superiore, Allen Romano | Khan Academy, Mikko Tolonen | Helsinki University, Stefania Tutino | UCLA
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* MERITA, the network for talent project is the result of a collaboration between five Italian academic institutions: the Scuola Normale Superiore, the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, the Collegio Superiore dell’Università di Bologna, the Scuola Galileiana di Studi Superiori dell’Università di Padova and the Scuola Superiore di Studi Avanzati della Sapienza Università di Roma.
The MERITA project is funded within the Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza (PNRR), Missione 4 – Istruzione e Ricerca, Componente 1, Investimento 3.4 "Didattica e competenze universitarie avanzate"- "Rafforzamento delle Scuole universitarie superiori". (National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), Mission 4 – Education and Research, Component 1, Investment 3.4 "Advanced university teaching and competences" - "Enhancement of the institutions for higher education").