Digital Projects

The Sensory Monastery

Researcher: Sheila Bonde

The Sensory Monastery is a digital book project sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Digital Scholarship Initiative at Brown, and partially funded by a recent Salomon award. The project focuses on the abbey of Saint-Jean-des-Vignes, (France), and particularly on aspects of its daily life and sensory experience across time, including the monastic soundscape and bells, smell and on the tactile aspects of monastic life; and the changing architectural frame for liturgy.

Telling (Her)Story: Women Designers in Rhode Island

Researcher: Itohan Osayimwese
Rhode Tour is a smartphone app and website that uses text, sound, and images to bring Rhode Island stories online. Professor Osayimwese and Brown University students created a tour for Rhode Tour that explores how Rhode Island women practiced design in ways that were often oriented toward social progress and change.

The Theater That Was Rome

Researcher: Evelyn Lincoln
This digital humanities research site on the networks of producers (printers, publishers, patrons, artists, and authors) of early modern books printed in, or about, Rome. The site also hosts documents on the material culture of early modern Roman print shops, including the papers of Francesca Consagra relating to her research on the de Rossi family printing and publishing dynasty.

Brown FACADES

Researcher: Dietrich Neumann

Brown FACADES (Facts about Campus Architecture, Design, Environments and Spaces) is an iPhone app that serves as an interactive guide to the architectural history of the Brown University Campus. Brown’s Campus is a microcosm of American architecture with excellent examples from all periods of its 250-year history. At the same time, its architecture and art, and its public and intimate spaces help to tell the rich story of our unique institution, our students, faculty, staff, and administrators. The work on this App began with an undergraduate research seminar in the history of architecture in the fall of 2011.