Stanford Humanities Center
Interventions
Welcome to Interventions, an experimental space where authors rehearse new ideas, reframe questions, or play unbridled within Arcade’s field of the humanities in the world. These short posts embrace the incomplete, the imperfect, and the indeterminate, but they may become much more: for example, the record of a thinker’s turn toward a new paradigm or the rough draft of a chapter in a new book. Rapid publication and immediate responses permit Interventions to foster conversation. The tone of the posts may range from personal to political, while maintaining a critical edge.
Published regularly, Interventions are often freestanding contributions to Arcade, but some may join our feature called Colloquies. Inquiries and submissions are received by the editor of Interventions.
Peter Christensen looks closely at two architectural and mass housing projects to explore the place of dignity in architecture and the call for just climate futures. What can the spatial humanities teach us about architecture’s role in honoring the lives that inhabit it?
Giovanna Ceserani’s latest book, A World Made by Travel: The Digital Grand Tour, is an open-access, digital publication released in June 2024 by Stanford University Press. This digital publication transforms the foundational Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy, 1701–1800 (published by the Paul Mellon Centre and compiled from the Brinsley Ford Archive held at the PMC) into a rich, interactive interface. In celebration of Open Access Week, Ceserani writes about her motivation to publish her book in an open-access, digital format.
Yousuf Saeed, Co-founder and project director of Tasveer Ghar, and International Visiting Fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center, reflects on digitizing and archiving South Asian bazaar art, and the question of the intellectual property and community ownership of popular art at Tasveer Ghar.
In a conversation with our editor, Stephanie Kirk, director of the Washington University in St. Louis Center for the Humanities, discusses her efforts to support humanities students pursuing careers beyond academia.
In a conversation with our editor, Nicole Coleman reflects on her career at Stanford's Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis and the promises and challenges of interdisciplinary teaching and research.
In a conversation with our editor, Professors Franz Fischer and Giovanna Ceserani reflect on their careers in the digital humanities and the various intersections between digital, public, and traditional humanities initiatives at the university and beyond.
In a conversation with our editor, Professor Alice Staveley reflects on her career at the intersection of archival studies and the digital humanities, including the new possibilities digital publishing technology can open up for scholarship on modernist writers.
In a conversation with our editor, Alix Keener reflects on her career in academic libraries and the digital humanities, and how digital tools are reshaping the landscape of scholarly communication.
