Sounding Spirit is collaborating with seven partner institutions to grow its pilot library to an expansive, open access digital collection comprising over 1,250 volumes of southern vernacular hymnody published between 1850 and 1925. With the generous support of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the collaborative is partnering with faculty and graduate students on key editorial components of the library: volume summaries and collection descriptions. Undergraduate students are also contributing to these efforts as part of ongoing pedagogical collaborations.
Volume Summaries (Graduate Students)
We are currently engaging graduate students with strong research and writing skills who can contribute short volume summaries (150–250 words) to the digital library. We are especially eager to work with students whose research interests align with the library’s themes of race, place, religion, and modernity in the history and practice of sacred music. Each summary will relate the digital library’s curatorial themes to an individual work’s form, contents, editors, and audiences. Sample volume summaries in the pilot digital library can be accessed by clicking on any volume and selecting the “More Info” tab.
In addition to publishing with a high-profile digital humanities project, graduate students will receive a $50 stipend for each volume summary. We hope that participating students will contribute between five and ten volume summaries.
Collection Descriptions
(Scholars, Scholar-Practitioner Subject Matter Experts)
We are currently engaging scholars and scholar-practitioners to author one or two collection descriptions that align with their research interests and scholarship. With the list of collections finalized but digital library volumes still being sorted into relevant collections, we are inviting participation by faculty and experts with related expertise and research interests.
These 500–750 word entries about groupings of volumes we are calling “collections” will consider Sounding Spirit’s curatorial emphasis on race, place, religion, and modernity in relation to both the collection theme and included volumes. Collection descriptions will include a short reference list for further engagement that will guide users of the library, including educators at all levels. Sample entries in the pilot digital library can be accessed by clicking on any collection. First drafts of collection entries will be due in Summer 2023, allowing for editorial review and author revisions by early 2024. The descriptions will be published when the digital library goes live in late summer 2024. Our honorarium per collection entry is $150.
Inquiries about contributing volume summaries and collection descriptions can be directed to Sounding Spirit editorial lead, Meredith Doster (mdoster@emory.edu). We look forward to welcoming student-colleagues and scholars to the project!