Cohen, Price earn NEH grant for Walt Whitman project

The digital humanities project "Walt Whitman Archive Infrastructure Revitalization" has earned funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, according to the organization's announcement.

Professor Matt Cohen and Hillegass University Professor of American Literature Ken Price, both of the Department of English, are co-principal investigators of the project. They aim to make it easier to search and use the materials on the Walt Whitman Archive by improving the digital architecture. Tasks include: changing the programming framework; creating a machine-readable interface for the website's code, images, and metadata; revising files to improve the metadata; and leveraging existing metadata through a new search engine.

Cohen and Price recognized Karin Dalziel and Elizabeth Lorang of University Libraries as instrumental to the receipt of the award.

"[We] applaud the stellar work of Karin—she took the lead in conceptualizing the proposal and drafting the grant," Price said. "She deserves the lion's share of the credit."

"Liz was the driving force behind our early attempt at this," Cohen added.

NEH Chairman Jon Parrish Peede said projects like this, which was featured in the New York Times, exemplify the power of the humanities to educate, enrich, and enlighten.