Daniel Banta’s Digital Humanities Fellowship has been invested in research, and in learning how to make research public through the web. Daniel has been developing a web site with Eric Williams-Bergen, Director of Digital Initiatives, for Elun Gabriel’s Spring 2017 History course on genocide, and he specifically has been researching the Rwandan genocide of 1994.
Using the mapping software CARTO, Daniel has been mapping massacre sites in Rwanda and uploading research he has found relevant to what happened at the locale. This documentation includes materials such as newspaper articles, narrative accounts, and United Nations reports. The idea is that students in Dr. Gabriel’s class will have this material to begin their work, and then can add to it as they begin their own research. “It’s very much in the spirit of a Wiki.” In discussing the project Daniel also added, “I once saw a map-based visualization of World War Two and that was an inspiration. It also started a conversation with Elun, who offered me this research assistantship. I really didn’t have a great deal of background with either the Rwandan genocide or technology, so it’s been a lot of learning by doing. Hard, I’ll admit, at times…”