The Voltaire Library Project: Using Digital Humanities to Bridge Book and Intellectual History
Abstract: What shaped Voltaire's working library of 6,700 books? And what in the library shaped Voltaire's work? These questions lie at the heart of the Voltaire Library Project, the first comprehensive study of Voltaire's private collection. The library has remained largely unstudied since Catherine the Great purchased it in 1778. The goal of this project is to build a database of the library, and use the data - social, geographic, literary, historical - to uncover Voltaire's influences. This talk explores how digital humanities can bridge book and intellectual history, and the role of linked data in enhancing and preserving cultural monuments.
About the speaker:Lena Zlock is a senior at Stanford double-majoring in History and French. She has been the Principal Investigator of the Voltaire Library Project for the past three years. Lena is the inaugural visiting researcher at the Voltaire Foundation’s Voltaire Lab at the University of Oxford. She has presented her research at the University of Oxford and Stanford University. For her work in digital humanities, she was awarded the Oxford University Press Prize. Her research is generously supported by the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education at Stanford.