George MacLeod, assistant professor of French, and Rob Kelley, assistant professor of computer science, presented research at the African Literature Association Conference in Washington, D.C. on May 24, 2018. Their presentation, entitled “Visualizing the Archive,” was an interdisciplinary, digital humanities exploration of literature and testimony from the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Their research found that, paradoxically, Rwandan authors are less cited in scholarly conversations about the 1994 genocide than non-Rwandan authors. Kelley produced a variety of visualizations showing how advanced data mapping techniques can represent visually which authors are discussed and which are ignored.
Kelley and MacLeod plan to continue their interdisciplinary collaboration, exploring how advanced text processing, data collection and visualization can complement research in the humanities.
