Mellon Sawyer Seminar Series Featured in Stanford Report
On May 21st, 2024, Stanford Report published an article featuring CESTA's Mellon Sawyer Seminar Series, "The Data that Divides Us: Recalibrating Data Methods for New Knowledge Frameworks Across the Humanities". Giovanna Ceserani, Faculty Director of CESTA and one of the PIs of this seminar series, and Chloé Brault, Mellon Sawyer Dissertation Fellow and PhD Candidate in Comparative Literature, shared their thoughts on data collection and analysis's place in our lives today, especially from the humanities perspective, with Alex Kekauoha, the author of the article.
Both Giovanna and Chloé shared how the seminars have been like, and how they think these seminars facilitated conversations among faculty, students, staff at Stanford and neighboring academic institutions. The article also features summaries of some of the previous seminars.
We invite you to read the article and share your opinions with us about the Mellon Sawyer Seminar Series we have been holding, as well as data's place in humanities and humanities' place in data science. You can reach out to us via emailing cesta_stanford [at] stanford.edu (cesta_stanford[at]stanford[dot]edu).
The seminar series isn't over, as we have the final seminar and the symposium ahead of us. The final seminar is titled “Ancient Data and Its Divisions” and presented by Chiara Palladino, assistant professor of classics at Furman University, Eric Harvey, a researcher collaborating with CESTA, and Chris Johanson, associate professor of classics and digital humanities at the University of California, Los Angeles. It will take place Thursday, May 30, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at Wallenberg Hall.
The Mellon Sawyer Seminar Series will conclude with a symposium on Friday, May 31, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Wallenberg Hall.
In addition to Professor Ceserani, the faculty PIs for the series are Mark Algee-Hewitt, associate professor of English and digital humanities, Grant Parker, associate professor of classics and African and African American studies, and Laura Stokes, associate professor of history. The series also supports Mellon Sawyer graduate dissertation fellow Matthew Warner, a PhD candidate in English, and postdoctoral scholar Dr. Nichole Nomura, who studies 20th-century American literature and digital humanities.
We thank Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for this generous award that made these seminar series and fellowships possible. We would also like to thank the Stanford Humanities Center and the Dean's Office in the Humanities and Sciences School for their assistance and support for the seminar series.