Critical Digital Humanities Initiative

I currently serve as the Director of the Critical Digital Humanities Initiative, an Institutional Strategic Initiative (ISI) at the University of Toronto. The CDHI received funding in December 2020 for 4 years (Jan 2021- May 1, 2025) with the financial support of four University of Toronto divisions (UTM, UTSC, the Faculty of Information, and FAS) and the ISI, for a combined cash budget of $3,184,215.

The CDHI enables transdisciplinary collaborations that emphasize questions of power, social justice, and critical theory in digital humanities research. Its vision is to harness the very tools of the digital revolution to forge a new paradigm of critical humanities scholarship, one that bridges the humanities’ emphasis on power and culture in historical perspective with the tools and analysis of digital technology.

We support faculty research through emerging project grants and our UX Design for DH Accelerator Program; we have supported graduate students through annual Graduate Student DH fellowships; undergraduate students have been embedded in faculty research projects through our undergrad fellowship program; and we have hosted 6 postdoctoral fellows. We have also created a research and knowledge mobilization methodology we call “Digital Research Storytelling” and have trained four cohorts of researchers in learning how to communicate their research in short video productions.

The CDHI has built and supported a network of nearly 100 faculty researchers through our Lightning Lunch series, our Visiting speaker series, our newsletter, and other networking activities.