A group of scholars and professionals from across the University of Illinois campus has come together to create a new digital humanities project: Parthenon at Illinois. The team includes two Library faculty, Mary Ton, Assistant Professor and Digital Humanities Librarian, and Elias Petrou, Assistant Professor and Classical Studies Librarian, along with Victoria Austen, Assistant Professor, Department of Classics, and Christa Deacy-Quinn, Senior Collections Manager at the Spurlock Museum. The project has received a $30,000 financial award from the Illinois Campus Research Board, which was established in 1932 to serve the campus as a conduit for the distribution of funding to support faculty members’ research projects and creative activities.

Parthenon at Illinois studies the long history of replication through the lens of historic plaster casts of the Parthenon friezes at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s Spurlock Museum of World Cultures. The project adapts cutting-edge 3D digitization and manufacturing techniques to make digital and physical replicas of the Illinois cast collection.  “While technologies like 3D printing and modeling are often linked to STEM, a humanities perspective reveals their place within a much longer tradition of replica-making. I’m particularly excited to collaborate with Victora, Elias, and Christa to study how different stakeholder communities interact with our digital and physical replicas,” said Ton, who serves as the principal investigator (PI) for the project.

Petrou and Austen, who serve as co-PIs, voiced their excitement for outreach opportunities beyond campus. “This grant is important because it enables us to bring the history and cultural significance of the Parthenon to the Greek community in Chicago through dedicated events and outreach. By working together, we aim to celebrate shared heritage, promote dialogue, and create new opportunities for engagement with the past,” said Petrou. Austen added, “Collaborating on such an interdisciplinary project will also foster important long-term connections on campus between multiple units.”

Deacy-Quinn, who has served as the caretaker of the cast collection since 1991, said, “I am excited to re-engage with the plaster casts in a new way. By making replicas of these historic casts, we can explore more pathways of learning and accessibility.”

Project updates will be shared in English and Greek through the Parthenon at Illinois website.

Ruthann Mowry, Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts and Assistant Professor, has received a Seed Grant from the Birmingham-Illinois Partnership for Discovery, Engagement & Education partnership program (known as “BRIDGE”). BRIDGE provides a framework for mutual collaboration and investment between the two institutions with a specific vision to foster breakthrough research and address shared global challenges. Mowry and their collaborator, Dr. Hazel Wilkinson, Senior Lecturer at the University of Birmingham Department of English Literature, have received a Seed Grant, which funds projects by those interested in developing new research relationships with colleagues at UoB and Illinois.

Their project fosters collaboration between Emblematica (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), a digital library of emblem books, and Compositor (University of Birmingham), a database of printers’ ornaments. Both databases use digital technologies to explore the early modern text-image interface, investigating how readers engaged with visual motifs. Mowry and Wilkinson hypothesize that “emblem-literacy” caused readers to engage with ornamented books in ways unaccounted for in scholarship. Through academic seminars, student workshops, and a public exhibition, this initiative will generate new research, advance digital methodologies, and establish a sustained institutional partnership.

Congratulations to Mowry on receiving support for this exciting collaboration!

Sara Benson, Copyright Librarian and Associate Professor at the University Library has been awarded a Fulbright Specialist Grant. First established in 2001, this program by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs “pairs highly qualified U.S. academics and professionals with institutions abroad to share their expertise, strengthen institutional linkages, hone their skills, gain international experience, and learn about other cultures while building capacity at receiving institutions.”

Alex Deeke, Assistant Professor and Undergraduate Teaching and Learning Librarian, and María Emerson, Assistant Professor and Student Success Librarian, have been awarded a 2025 Instructional Innovation Mini Grant through the Teaching Advancement Board at the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Provost. These grants support efforts to pursue innovation in education and seek to create a diverse and vibrant community focused on instructional innovation.

Their project, titled “Teaching, Sharing, and Celebrating First-Year Student Creators Through Zine Instruction,” aims to build a program at the University Library that elevates zine instruction to students in Rhetoric 101 and showcases students as creators of zines. Grant funds will be used to develop zine teaching materials, train Rhetoric instructors on incorporating zines into their curriculum, and create instructional services, including course-integrated workshops and a consultation service, to support Rhetoric students creating zines.

“We are excited about this grant since it will communicate the value and power of zines in an academic setting, empower first-year students in the Rhetoric program to view themselves as creators of knowledge, and help them develop their academic identities via an emerging medium,” said Deeke and Emerson. They also hope to digitize student-created zines to be part of a digital zine collection and host a Zine Celebration Event at the library to showcase the zines created by Rhetoric 101 students.

Congratulations to Deeke and Emerson on receiving support for their innovative instruction project!