All posts by jwbaker

James Baker is Director of Digital Humanities at the University of Southampton. James is a Software Sustainability Institute Fellow, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and holds degrees from the University of Southampton and latterly the University of Kent, where in 2010 he completed his doctoral research on the late-Georgian artist-engraver Isaac Cruikshank. James works at the intersection of history, cultural heritage, and digital technologies. He is currently working on a history of knowledge organisation in twentieth century Britain. In 2021, I begin a major new Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project 'Beyond Notability: Re-evaluating Women’s Work in Archaeology, History and Heritage, 1870 – 1950'. Previous externally funded research projects have focused on legacy descriptions of art objects ('Legacies of Catalogue Descriptions and Curatorial Voice: Opportunities for Digital Scholarship', Arts and Humanities Research Council), the preservation of intangible cultural heritage ('Coptic Culture Conservation Collective', British Council, and 'Heritage Repertoires for inclusive and sustainable development', British Academy), the born digital archival record ('Digital Forensics in the Historical Humanities', European Commission), and decolonial futures for museum collections ('Making African Connections: Decolonial Futures for Colonial Collections', Arts and Humanities Research Council). Prior to joining Southampton, James held positions of Senior Lecturer in Digital History and Archives at the University of Sussex and Director of the Sussex Humanities Lab, Digital Curator at the British Library, and Postdoctoral Fellow with the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. He is a member of the Arts and Humanities Research Council Peer Review College, a convenor of the Institute of Historical Research Digital History seminar, a member of The Programming Historian Editorial Board and a Director of ProgHist Ltd (Company Number 12192946), and an International Advisory Board Member of British Art Studies.
History, Research

Some collections on my radar

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The John Johnson Collected of Printed Ephemera relaunched this week with a splendid new front end and some improvements to the discovery interface. Alongside the now obligatory collection of image of cats, the image galleries give a real sense of how rich the collection is and how it differs from the more traditional collections of visual material held at institutions such as the British Musuem, British Library or National Portrait Gallery.

Another collection that came my way this week is the Lexikon der Revolutions-Ikonographie in der europäischen Druckgraphik 1789-1889, which includes 10,851 publicly accessible images. Professor Rolf Reichardt, one of the project leads, was until now totally off my radar but having had a pick through the project database there is plenty there for any scholar of caricature to get their teeth into, not least some examples of that staple of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century printing: Louis XVI begging for his life.

On that macabre note, enjoy!