Professor Scott B. Spencer opens DkIT Research Excellence Series with lecture on Digital Humanities
Professor Scott B. Spencer from the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California presented a special guest lecture as part of the DkIT Research Excellence Series this September. Hosted by the Creative Arts Research Centre and Department of Creative Arts, Media and Music, Professor Spencer’s talk entitled Digital Humanities: Making New Connections for Traditional Creative Collections was delivered to a varied audience of researchers and students from disciplines as diverse as archaeology and computer science.
Trained in Ethnomusicology, Professor Spencer investigates the musical intersections of oral tradition and digital technology. Much of his work has been through the lens of Irish traditional music, though his publications have also looked to American balladry and sonic design in museums. He received his PhD in Ethnomusicology from New York University in 2010 and went on to serve as the Irish American Cultural Institute’s Visiting Research Fellow in Irish Studies at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Before moving to Los Angeles, he served as Mellon Regional Faculty Fellow for the Penn Humanities Forum at the University of Pennsylvania.
The presentation at DkIT drew Professor Spencer’s background in oral history archives, including those at New York University and the City University of New York. He began by considering the USC Shoah Foundation, where he runs the Preserving the Legacy involving oral histories of survivors of genocides and probably the largest Digital Humanities project in the world. He highlighted how such large-scale projects can provide inspiration and models for smaller scale research projects while also democratising and making accessible the work of academics.
Professor Spencer demonstrated how modes of academic publication have changed with the increasing ease of hyper-linking data and MARC record metadata from anywhere in the digital world. He encouraged the audience to consider the importance of effective and targeted curation, recognising that academic institutions are recognising a wider interpretation of "publications" to include researchers more accessible digital works.
Presenting perspectives from his experiences as both researcher and archivist, Professor Spencer referenced three Digital Humanities projects: Capturing O’Neill (with WIMA and ITMA); Live at Mona’s – America’s first live Irish session album; and UCLA's Database of Recorded Jewish Music, as well as highlighting how students can become engaged in the research process. He also gave a brief preview of his forthcoming book on the NYPD Emerald Society Pipe Band and the role of music in times of tragedy.
Professor Spencer’s seminar was supported by the Research Office at DkIT and is the first in a series of exciting seminars by leading scholars across a range of research areas. In October, we will be joined by Professor Rebecca Miller from Hampshire College, New York, author of the recently published Are You Dancing? Showbands, Popular Music, and Memory in Modern Ireland (Indiana University Press).