I am delighted to announce the launch of my CHI project, Shakespeare’s Shadows! Over the past academic year, I have been reading, researching, testing different technologies, and learning how to code in order to make this happen.

My research interest lies in understanding the way in which English Renaissance dramatists engaged with the visual arts, specifically through the lens of professionalization. I argue that Renaissance dramatists reference and make use of English artistic theory in order to reflect upon their own multi-media, visual/verbal form. With this interest in mind, I scaled my project to focus on the dramas in Shakespeare’s First Folio. For more information about the background, rationale, and objective of this study, please visit the ‘About the project’ page on my site.

Using Voyant, I explored Shakespeare’s texts through the use of their web-based data visualization tools. Each graph on my website analyzes a different part of Shakespeare’s corpus or related texts, and uncovers unique connections and trends that were not apparent previously. Most graphs are interactive. I encourage users to manipulate these graphs to suit their own curiosities.

I plan to keep adding to the webpage and I also look forward using Shakespeare’s Shadows in my classroom. Next academic year, I am fortunate enough to be teaching two Shakespeare courses and I plan to work with students to facilitate a research-based learning environment. Shakespeare’s Shadows is just one example of the many ways digital work can lead to new understandings of old texts and I cannot wait to share this with my students!

You can find much more information about the project on the actual webpage, which I hope you will take a moment to visit. Because there is more work to be done, I would really appreciate your feedback. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have.

Lastly, I would like to thank MATRIX, the Cultural Heritage Informatics Initiative, and especially Ethan Watrall for generously supporting me as I worked on this project.