Stephen Robertson
@srober30.bsky.social
Professor of History at George Mason University; co-creator of Digital Harlem; author of Harlem in Disorder: A Spatial History of How Racial Violence Changed in 1935, https://harlemindisorder.org;
https://drstephenrobertson.com
https://drstephenrobertson.com
Grateful for two recent prizes for Harlem in Disorder:
- 2025 Ángel David Nieves Book Award for Best Monograph, American Studies Association Digital Humanities Caucus
- Honorable Mention, 2025 Mary L. Dudziak Digital Legal History Prize, American Society for Legal History
- 2025 Ángel David Nieves Book Award for Best Monograph, American Studies Association Digital Humanities Caucus
- Honorable Mention, 2025 Mary L. Dudziak Digital Legal History Prize, American Society for Legal History
November 24, 2025 at 6:50 PM
Grateful for two recent prizes for Harlem in Disorder:
- 2025 Ángel David Nieves Book Award for Best Monograph, American Studies Association Digital Humanities Caucus
- Honorable Mention, 2025 Mary L. Dudziak Digital Legal History Prize, American Society for Legal History
- 2025 Ángel David Nieves Book Award for Best Monograph, American Studies Association Digital Humanities Caucus
- Honorable Mention, 2025 Mary L. Dudziak Digital Legal History Prize, American Society for Legal History
Back from presenting an early prototype of a new project mapping early 20th century undercover investigations at the 2025 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Legal History - including this poster.
November 20, 2025 at 8:56 PM
Back from presenting an early prototype of a new project mapping early 20th century undercover investigations at the 2025 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Legal History - including this poster.
Reposted by Stephen Robertson
Great news! This is out: Opening the black box of EEBO academic.oup.com/dsh/advance-...
Opening the black box of EEBO
Abstract. Digital archives that cover extended historical periods can create a misleading impression of comprehensiveness while in truth providing access t
academic.oup.com
November 9, 2025 at 10:30 AM
Great news! This is out: Opening the black box of EEBO academic.oup.com/dsh/advance-...
Reposted by Stephen Robertson
CRDH Vol. 8: New research from Fabio Gigone, Natacha Klein Käfer, Natália da Silva Perez, Nadav Borenstein, Miara Fraikin, Sanne Maekelberg, and Anna McGee explores topics from royal iconography to AI-powered print analysis, midwifery education to palace networks.
Read here: https://crdh.rrchnm.org
Read here: https://crdh.rrchnm.org
Current Research in Digital History
Hosted by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, Current Research in Digital History is an open-access, peer-reviewed, online publication. Its primary aim is to encourage and publish scholarship in digital history that offers discipline-specific arguments and interpretations.
crdh.rrchnm.org
November 3, 2025 at 4:35 PM
CRDH Vol. 8: New research from Fabio Gigone, Natacha Klein Käfer, Natália da Silva Perez, Nadav Borenstein, Miara Fraikin, Sanne Maekelberg, and Anna McGee explores topics from royal iconography to AI-powered print analysis, midwifery education to palace networks.
Read here: https://crdh.rrchnm.org
Read here: https://crdh.rrchnm.org
Reposted by Stephen Robertson
Launching an interactive digital map and database of Detroit’s historic Black-owned businesses. Check it out at freedomenterprise.org
August 5, 2025 at 12:13 AM
Launching an interactive digital map and database of Detroit’s historic Black-owned businesses. Check it out at freedomenterprise.org
Reposted by Stephen Robertson
CONGRATULATIONS!!!
I have the contract in hand so that makes it official... I have officially been awarded tenure at George Mason University!
Expect more awesome history out of me, especially via @rrchnm.bsky.social, in the years and decades to come!
Expect more awesome history out of me, especially via @rrchnm.bsky.social, in the years and decades to come!
May 2, 2025 at 7:59 PM
CONGRATULATIONS!!!
Reposted by Stephen Robertson
Been hearing about the horrific climate Harvard U Press for some time: www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
Harvard University Press Employees Say Director Drove Down Acquisitions and Morale | News | The Harvard Crimson
Since George T. Andreou ’87 became the press’s director in 2017, staff alleged — in interviews, union surveys, and letters to Harvard officials — that he belittled employees and mismanaged the publish...
www.thecrimson.com
May 3, 2025 at 9:19 PM
Been hearing about the horrific climate Harvard U Press for some time: www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
Reposted by Stephen Robertson
“When Information is Networked” — My tribute to Clifford Lynch, who sadly passed away last week. Cliff saw before anyone else how digital technology would enable new forms of research and learning, and completely transform the production and dissemination of knowledge
April 14, 2025 at 7:00 PM
“When Information is Networked” — My tribute to Clifford Lynch, who sadly passed away last week. Cliff saw before anyone else how digital technology would enable new forms of research and learning, and completely transform the production and dissemination of knowledge
Reposted by Stephen Robertson
Last week we learned that 6 of our active NEH awards—totaling $789k in unspent funds—were immediately terminated by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.This is obviously a blow, and a serious one, to our work.But we will carry on. To see our terminated grants rrchnm.org/news/carryin...
Carrying On When the Grants Go Away – Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media
rrchnm.org
April 11, 2025 at 2:15 PM
Last week we learned that 6 of our active NEH awards—totaling $789k in unspent funds—were immediately terminated by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.This is obviously a blow, and a serious one, to our work.But we will carry on. To see our terminated grants rrchnm.org/news/carryin...
Reposted by Stephen Robertson
Y'all. I get that a small scholarly org can be nimble and take on a lot of quick, grassroots work. It's super important and exciting. But that should not encourage you to insult the hardworking professionals who are keeping large scholarly orgs moving in astonishingly difficult circumstances.
March 15, 2025 at 12:18 PM
Y'all. I get that a small scholarly org can be nimble and take on a lot of quick, grassroots work. It's super important and exciting. But that should not encourage you to insult the hardworking professionals who are keeping large scholarly orgs moving in astonishingly difficult circumstances.
Reposted by Stephen Robertson
@historians.org & the AHA Digital History Working Group are applying for an NEH digital humanities grant. Historians, please take this quick 2-question survey about your interest in digital tools & methods for research/teaching. Help shape future DH workshops & share with interested colleagues.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdD9ER-NkW1Q4951tP4Ohb3H0VA9cRJoAVHWROElC-4fo78zg/viewform
January 11, 2025 at 10:48 PM
@historians.org & the AHA Digital History Working Group are applying for an NEH digital humanities grant. Historians, please take this quick 2-question survey about your interest in digital tools & methods for research/teaching. Help shape future DH workshops & share with interested colleagues.
In the era of AI, perhaps we need to return to the term the AHA used instead of digital historian in 1999: the proposal for the e-Gutenberg project aimed for publications "without elaborate links to documents and databases, or “bells and whistles,” according to the jargon of the e-people."
December 23, 2024 at 11:48 PM
In the era of AI, perhaps we need to return to the term the AHA used instead of digital historian in 1999: the proposal for the e-Gutenberg project aimed for publications "without elaborate links to documents and databases, or “bells and whistles,” according to the jargon of the e-people."
Reposted by Stephen Robertson
Why do people transcribe @librarycongress collections? What do volunteers get out of crowdsourced transcription? Our article "Giving back, learning, relaxing, & having fun: personal motivations & impacts of a virtual volunteer transcription program" is out now! rdcu.be/dXXRs @tjowens.bsky.social
Giving back, learning, relaxing, and having fun: personal motivations and impacts of a virtual volunteer transcription program
rdcu.be
October 24, 2024 at 4:39 PM
Why do people transcribe @librarycongress collections? What do volunteers get out of crowdsourced transcription? Our article "Giving back, learning, relaxing, & having fun: personal motivations & impacts of a virtual volunteer transcription program" is out now! rdcu.be/dXXRs @tjowens.bsky.social
Reposting this for all the new arrivals
Just back from presenting my digital monograph, Harlem in Disorder, at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Legal History - including this poster, which I hope helps convey the multilayered format of the publication as well as its arguments about the legal aftermath of the disorder.
November 13, 2024 at 3:14 PM
Reposting this for all the new arrivals
Reposted by Stephen Robertson
New post, “A Large Language Model Walks Into an Archive…” explores how historians can use off-the-shelf LLMs to work with primary sources 📜 cblevins.github.io/posts/llm-pr...
October 29, 2024 at 8:12 PM
New post, “A Large Language Model Walks Into an Archive…” explores how historians can use off-the-shelf LLMs to work with primary sources 📜 cblevins.github.io/posts/llm-pr...
Just back from presenting my digital monograph, Harlem in Disorder, at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Legal History - including this poster, which I hope helps convey the multilayered format of the publication as well as its arguments about the legal aftermath of the disorder.
October 29, 2024 at 9:11 PM
Just back from presenting my digital monograph, Harlem in Disorder, at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Legal History - including this poster, which I hope helps convey the multilayered format of the publication as well as its arguments about the legal aftermath of the disorder.
Reposted by Stephen Robertson
My friend Leah Meisterlin shared with me a new, collaborative 3D mapping project: Exploring Seneca Village depicts the African-American village destroyed by NYC to make way for Central Park envisioningsenecavillage.github.io
See also her team's 🏆🤩 Mapping Historical NY atlas: mappinghny.com
See also her team's 🏆🤩 Mapping Historical NY atlas: mappinghny.com
October 26, 2024 at 6:19 AM
My friend Leah Meisterlin shared with me a new, collaborative 3D mapping project: Exploring Seneca Village depicts the African-American village destroyed by NYC to make way for Central Park envisioningsenecavillage.github.io
See also her team's 🏆🤩 Mapping Historical NY atlas: mappinghny.com
See also her team's 🏆🤩 Mapping Historical NY atlas: mappinghny.com
Reposted by Stephen Robertson
Soft launch on a Friday afternoon, but I’m too excited to wait—we finally have a new database providing search & download access to the Viral Texts Project’s "speculative bibliographies" of C19 newspaper reprinting
Huge thanks to iSchool PhD student Daniel Evans for making the impossible possible!
Huge thanks to iSchool PhD student Daniel Evans for making the impossible possible!
A New Viral Texts Database
Back in 2020, Viral Texts Project co-PI Ryan Cordell—henceforth “I,” as I’m also the one writing here—wrote about our collective failure to develop and maintain a database of the reprints we have unco...
viraltexts.org
October 18, 2024 at 5:53 PM
Soft launch on a Friday afternoon, but I’m too excited to wait—we finally have a new database providing search & download access to the Viral Texts Project’s "speculative bibliographies" of C19 newspaper reprinting
Huge thanks to iSchool PhD student Daniel Evans for making the impossible possible!
Huge thanks to iSchool PhD student Daniel Evans for making the impossible possible!
New to me as a way of promoting my digital monograph Harlem in Disorder - a reddit AMA (ask me anything) at r/AskHistorians (www.reddit.com/r/AskHistori...) on October 17 - thanks to @dhowlett1692.bsky.social for the invitation - @stanfordpress.bsky.social 🗃️
Reddit - Dive into anything
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October 15, 2024 at 3:48 PM
New to me as a way of promoting my digital monograph Harlem in Disorder - a reddit AMA (ask me anything) at r/AskHistorians (www.reddit.com/r/AskHistori...) on October 17 - thanks to @dhowlett1692.bsky.social for the invitation - @stanfordpress.bsky.social 🗃️
Reposted by Stephen Robertson
I attended a meeting in May about the NYPL's Backlist Revival Project. They are working to make a lot of these titles available. See: networks.h-net.org/group/discus...
Introducing The New York Public Library’s Scholarly Press Backlist Revival Project | H-Net
A guest post from Feeding the Elephant: A Forum for Scholarly Communications. Guest post by Greg Cram, associate general counsel and director, Information Policy; and Kathleen Riegelhaupt, director eR...
networks.h-net.org
October 4, 2024 at 7:40 PM
I attended a meeting in May about the NYPL's Backlist Revival Project. They are working to make a lot of these titles available. See: networks.h-net.org/group/discus...
Reposted by Stephen Robertson
Really pleased to announce the launch of a thoroughly updated version of Locating London's Past: locatinglondon.org - new functionality, better mapping, cleaner data. @ihr.bsky.social @long18thsem.bsky.social @ihrhistorylab.bsky.social
October 2, 2024 at 8:54 AM
Really pleased to announce the launch of a thoroughly updated version of Locating London's Past: locatinglondon.org - new functionality, better mapping, cleaner data. @ihr.bsky.social @long18thsem.bsky.social @ihrhistorylab.bsky.social
Reposted by Stephen Robertson
A hugely important issue for the future of historical research.
There's an article in the Washington Post today on the enormous backlogs at the National Archives, as well as the recent switch to digital-only records acquisition www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...
Opinion | A digital tsunami is coming. The National Archives is in trouble.
The National Archives and Records Administration has been starved for resources for many years.
www.washingtonpost.com
September 20, 2024 at 2:23 PM
A hugely important issue for the future of historical research.
Reposted by Stephen Robertson
Looking forward to talking with Scott Berg about how you can use the digital medium not just to remediate a book but to extend it so the form fits your argument and offers the narrative of your research that footnotes no longer can: chr.gmu.edu/events/16028 (you can join us on Zoom)
CHR Book Launch: Stephen Robertson's "Harlem in Disorder"
Monday, September 23, 2024 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM EDT
chr.gmu.edu
August 22, 2024 at 4:09 PM
Looking forward to talking with Scott Berg about how you can use the digital medium not just to remediate a book but to extend it so the form fits your argument and offers the narrative of your research that footnotes no longer can: chr.gmu.edu/events/16028 (you can join us on Zoom)
Reposted by Stephen Robertson
Happy to announce the MLA’s new “Guidelines for Evaluating Digital Scholarship”: www.mla.org/About-Us/Gov.... It represents 2 years of work by our MLA Committee on Information Technology to revise the previous, narrower “Guidelines for Evaluating Work in Digital Humanities and Digital Media.”
Guidelines for Evaluating Digital Scholarship
Published by the Committee on Information Technology in 2024, these MLA guidelines are designed to help departments and scholars implement effective and fair evaluation procedures for hiring, reappoin...
www.mla.org
September 16, 2024 at 7:56 PM
Happy to announce the MLA’s new “Guidelines for Evaluating Digital Scholarship”: www.mla.org/About-Us/Gov.... It represents 2 years of work by our MLA Committee on Information Technology to revise the previous, narrower “Guidelines for Evaluating Work in Digital Humanities and Digital Media.”