Public & Digital Humanities Lab
The HRC Public & Digital Humanities Lab serves as a central hub for connecting students, faculty, staff, and other community practitioners engaged in the research, pedagogy, and practice of public and digital humanities. The goal of the PDH Lab is to foster the practice of collaborative and innovative inquiry and teaching related to the public-facing dimensions of the humanities, whether in digital or other modalities. The PDH Lab seeks to forge a community of practice of those interested in these related fields and practices, and is especially interested in providing opportunities for students to be engaged with the research and dissemination of digital and public-facing projects.
For questions, please contact current lab director Scott Breuninger (breuningersc@vcu.edu).
Meet the Team
Scott Breuninger, Ph.D.
Director
Scott Breuninger serves as the Dean of the Honors College at VCU and is trained as an intellectual historian. His research and publications have focused on the social, moral and economic dimensions of eighteenth-century European history and the Enlightenment. This work has resulted in a book (Recovering Bishop Berkeley: Virtue and Society in the Anglo-Irish Context), and a co-edited collection (The Bonds of Society: Sociability and Cosmopolitanism on the Fringes of the Enlightenment). His current project aims to broaden our understanding of the Irish Enlightenment by constructing a series of overlapping social maps of the organizations and individuals associated with this movement and showing how they reflect broader intellectual and cultural trends during this period.
Past Events
In 2023-24, this lab (formerly known as the Public Humanities Lab) was co-directed by Brian Daugherity, Professor of History, and Maggie Unverzagt Goddard, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History.
Public Humanities Here and Now: Richmond Cemetery Collaboratory
The Public Humanities Lab at the HRC kicked off on Friday, September 8, 2023 with an event on the Richmond Cemetery Collaboratory. Lab directors Maggie U. Goddard and Brian Daugherity moderated the event with presenters Ryan K. Smith, Bernard Means, Brian Palmer, and Meghan Z. Gough.
The Lives Between the Lines: Film Screening and Discussion
On September 25, 2023, we hosted a screening and discussion of The Lives Between the Lines, a documentary which tells the story behind the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at the University of Virginia. Utilizing interviews with students, professors, and Charlottesville community members, as well as many descendants of the enslaved laborers at UVA, The Lives Between the Lines illuminates the difficult history of an American institution and honors the legacy of the community in which it lives.