The cover of DH+BH: An Interdisciplinary Collection on Digital Humanities and Book History, recently published by the Illinois Open Publishing Network.

Spencer D. C. Keralis, co-director of the Center for Digital and Public Humanities, co-edited a collection of essays recently published by the Illinois Open Publishing Network. The book, DH+BH: An Interdisciplinary Collection on Digital Humanities and Book History, features eight essays written by fourteen contributors and is available for free online via Publishing Without Walls, a digital scholarly publishing initiative at the University of Illinois.

Keralis and their fellow co-editor Cait Coker, associate professor and curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, gathered writings that examine how digital humanities and book history can be applied to advocacy, activism, and recovery work. “I wanted to create space for folks who often find themselves on the margins of academic disciplines,” Keralis said. “I also wanted to highlight work that demystified and critiqued the essential infrastructure of DH and book history: digital collections, the processes of mass digitization, and the often-hidden labor that supports these systems.”

The collection—which takes its name from a 2022 virtual conference—covers topics such as feminist recovery work, the limitations of representation in digital collections, digital methodologies for the enrichment of book history, and interdisciplinary approaches to book history scholarship.

Lucille H. Douglass, chairperson of the Banneker School Foundation and Historic Site, cuts the ribbon at a ceremony celebrating the restoration of the schoolhouse.

The Banneker School Foundation and Historic Site recently celebrated the completion of the school’s restoration by hosting a ribbon cutting ceremony at the schoolhouse in Parkville, Missouri. Attended by various community members, alumni, and friends, the event celebrated the 140th anniversary of the kilning of the bricks used for the original schoolhouse, and honored the 40 years of work that have made the restoration possible. The Banneker School, named after Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806), an African American mathematician, astronomer, and racial equality advocate, is one of the few remaining one-room schoolhouses west of the Mississippi, and was originally one of just three schools built in Platte County to educate African American children.

Various figures involved in the restoration process shared remarks leading up to the ribbon cutting, including people from DMRTISANS, the Platte County Commission, the City of Parkville, Park University, the Park Hill School District, and the Platte County Historical Society, as well as Missouri State Representative Mike Jones and Missouri State Senator Barbara Washington. The Reverend Randy Sly of St. Therese Catholic Church opened the event with an invocation, and the culminating ribbon cutting and dedication were preceded by a benediction from a Banneker School descendant, the Reverend Atwood Williams of Greater Faith Missionary Baptist Church.

Various attendees at the ribbon cutting ceremony. From left: Sheryl Bierman, Catherine Friends Middleton, Dr. Sandra Enríquez, Maggie Neel, Michael Sprague, Dr. Diane Mutti Burke, Lucille H. Douglas, Dr. David Trowbridge, Carla Barksdale, Dr. Adrian Singletary, and Connie Friends. Dr. Mutti Burke holds a piece of commemorative artwork created for the occasion.

Through support and funding provided by the Kansas City Monuments Coalition and the Mellon Foundation, the Banneker School Foundation and Historic Site has installed ten historic markers, erected an entry sign and shelter at the entrance to the property (with solar-powered security cameras and landscape lighting), engineered an ADA compliance study, surveyed property to the north of the original school, and carried out landscaping and grading of the site. The foundation looks forward to opening the historic schoolhouse’s doors to the community and continuing to honor “the enduring spirit of those who fought for education and equality in Parkville’s history.”

Sancho Panza in the 20th Century, one of six panels that comprise the Don Quixote murals painted by Luis Quintanilla in UMKC’s Haag Hall.

The KCUR podcast A People’s History of Kansas City released an episode this month devoted to the Luis Quintanilla murals in UMKC’s Haag Hall. The murals, which were recently restored by the Spanish fresco restoration specialists Beatriz del Ordi and Iñaki Gárate Llombart, were painted in 1940 by Quintanilla during his brief tenure at UMKC (then the University of Kansas City) while in exile from fascist Spain.

Quintanilla had been appointed by the university’s president Clarence Decker to serve as resident artist, training apprentices and using UKC students, faculty, and staff members as models for the murals. Six large panels comprise the Haag artwork: Don Quixote in the Real World, Sancho Panza in the Real World, Don Quixote in the Ideal World, Sancho Panza in the Ideal World, Don Quixote in the 20th Century, and Sancho Panza in the 20th Century.

The podcast episode covered the history of the murals and of Quintanilla’s activities in Kansas City, featured interviews with UMKC faculty members and the restoration’s principal investigators Viviana Grieco, Ph.D., and Dr. Alberto Villamandos, Ph.D., and detailed the various styles employed by Quintanilla in the murals, including buon fresco, classical Renaissance and Baroque-style painting, a grotesqueness akin to that of Francisco Goya, as well as a modernist rejection of traditional ideas associated with European art.

The restoration is just one of many initiatives made possible by the Kansas City Monuments Coalition, which was created by UMKC after the university was awarded a $4 million grant from the Mellon Foundation. KCMC supports preservation and commemorative organizations across Kansas City, such as the Fort Osage National Historic Site, Missouri Town, and the Wornall-Majors House Museums.

Quintanilla’s murals were also the subject of a recent event on campus, “Making the Imaginary Real: Luis Quintanilla’s Don Quixote Murals.” The event was a lecture featuring Patrick Lenaghan, a scholar at the Hispanic Society of America, and Christine Kierig, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California Berkeley. The lecture covered the challenges faced by artists attempting to illustrate Don Quixote and concluded with a guided tour of the murals.