Grants | 18 April 2023

Undergraduate Summer Fellowship with Digital Heritage Mapping

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Paid Summer Fellowship with Digital Heritage Mapping
Sponsored by The Humanities Institute and the Center for Jewish Studies at UCSC
For Undergraduates

Digital Heritage Mapping (DHM) is a multi-disciplinary 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that melds age-old scholarship with 21st century technology to assert the importance of physical location to the understanding of history. Launched in 2008, DHM’s flagship initiative, Diarna (“Our Homes” in Judeo-Arabic): the Geo-Museum of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Life, pioneers the synthesis of digital mapping technology, traditional scholarship, and field research, as well as a trove of multimedia documentation to create virtual entry points to once vibrant, yet now largely vanished, communities.

In 2018, DHM launched Beitenu – The Atlas of Jewish Life to encompass and expand upon Diarna. To date, Beitenu has grown beyond the Middle East and North Africa to include Jewish sites, memories, and communities in 66 countries, including Poland, Mexico, Azerbaijan, and Mexico.

Working on Diarna provides unrivaled opportunities to explore the past, gain insights into people and places and the present, as well as uncover hidden history. Diarna was profiled in Smithsonian Magazine (June 2020), featured on the cover of Newsweek (2017), and listed as a resource for scholars in the Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World (2010). Exhibitions of Diarna photographs and/or interactive installations have occurred around the world, including at Paris City Hall, New York City’s Center for Jewish History, and Dubai’s Crossroads of Civilizations Museum. Diarna has been presented at conferences of Wellesley College, Association for Jewish Studies, American Sephardi Federation, Association of Jewish Librarians, and the Kingdom of Morocco’s Rabita Mohammadia des Oulémas and US Department of State for the “First Regional Conference on Cultural Heritage Protection for Religious Communities.”

What you will learn: Diarna interns will be part of an international, interfaith team dedicated to identifying, documenting, and preserving Jewish sites and memories. The work covers a range of areas, to be assigned depending upon skill level and interest, as well as current priorities. Possible assignments may include:

  • Research determining exact locations of Jewish sites in cities and towns across the region
  • Sourcing photographs and video (archival and contemporary) of these sites
  • Writing brief site entries for mapped locations by analyzing and synthesizing fragments of information culled from diverse sources
    (Note: the above three items may require conducting interviews as well as interfacing with partnered research institutions).
  • Translating research documents or project materials for publication
  • Helping prepare basic educational materials (e.g., curricular supplements, video presentations, lectures, virtual guided tours)
  • Assist with basic maintenance of the site, carrying out occasional tasks of proofreading, basic editing of materials for/on the site. Testing website links and reporting errors and inconsistencies.

Past interns have successfully presented at conferences, developed a lesson plan, and helped create exhibitions.

Interns are expected to complete assignments in a timely and efficient manner, work for at least two months during the summer, post findings regularly to shared online documents or the project’s research database, meet all assignment-specific deadlines, and contribute in other ways as required.

Fellows will work remotely – all work will be conducted online. Fellows are responsible for their own housing arrangements.

Who are you? All undergraduate majors are welcome. Knowledge of one or more relevant languages in addition to English would be helpful. Fellows should be comfortable working independently without daily supervision. Ideal candidates are:

  • Curious and conscientious
  • Determined to get results
  • Appreciative of the importance and urgency of the work

Compensation: Each fellow will receive 3,000 USD in the form of a fellowship administered by The Humanities Institute.

To Apply: Submit transcript, CV, and cover letter to aheckman@ucsc.edu by Monday, May 1, 2023, 11:59pm.

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