Dr Leonor Barroca has given a generous gift towards the establishment of the Sebastian ‘SPQR’ Rahtz Digital Humanities Fund. The fund will enable students to attend the Digital Humanities at Oxford Summer School without being restricted by financial hardship.
The University of Oxford is internationally-renowned for its digital humanities scholarship, an interdisciplinary form of research that uses digital technology to further humanities knowledge. Each year, the Digital Humanities at Oxford Summer School offers training to anyone with an interest in the field, including academics, students, project managers, and people who work in IT, libraries and cultural heritage. It is one of the world’s top digital humanities events, as well as a showcase for Oxford’s research.
The summer school began life as a three-day Text Encoding Initiative workshop, which was created in part by Sebastian Patrick Quintus Rahtz (1955-2016). Sebastian was Chief Data Architect for the University and a member of Wolfson College’s Digital Research Cluster. It is in celebration of Sebastian’s life, and his many and varied achievements in humanities computing, that the fund has been established.
Through the fund, Dr Barroca’s gift will enable the creation of four annual scholarships, to be awarded over the course of five years. The Sebastian ‘SPQR’ Rahtz Digital Humanities Scholarships will cover fees, accommodation and travel for full- or part-time students attending the Digital Humanities at Oxford Summer School.
Karen O’Brien, Head of the Humanities Division, said: ‘I can’t stress enough how important digital humanities is to the Humanities Division. The collaborative benefits of the Digital Humanities Network are felt by a broader community of researchers and research in interdisciplinary areas across Oxford. The summer school is a vital component of these activities and we are delighted that this fund will make it possible for students to attend.’
