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megsmith.bsky.social
dr. meg smith
@megsmith.bsky.social
2.2K followers 1.9K following 900 posts
• Interim Director & Research Asst Prof of Digital Humanities at @siueiris.bsky.social
• Medieval/early modern Irish historian
• Public transit enthusiast & urban cyclist
• Die-hard Packers fan
• Avid quilter/xstitcher
• Margaret, not Megan
• She/her
• STL
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megsmith.bsky.social
dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · Jan 1
How it started, how it’s going, #DigitalHumanities style
A screenshot of my Bluesky profile, where my bio shows that I am research assistant professor of digital humanities at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s IRIS Center A screenshot of my Bluesky profile with the “profile updated” badge, where my bio now shows that I am research assistant professor of digital humanities and interim director of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s IRIS Center
megsmith.bsky.social
Dogs who get carsick ride in the hazmat zone.

Parents who draw the short straw also ride in the hazmat zone, along with a minimum of six emergency towels in easy grabbing distance.
A grey dog sits in the back seat of a small car. She’s draped in a towel. The driver’s seat is draped in a towel. The whole backseat is draped in a fleece blanket. We are prepared for nearly any incident she can projectile puke at us.
November 22, 2025 at 10:03 PM
megsmith.bsky.social
Look, requiring four letters at the time of application is whack. (Inspired by one job ad in particular, but also evergreen advice for all the hiring committees out there.)
November 20, 2025 at 4:53 PM
megsmith.bsky.social
Man, I love museums. My partner told his aunt about the exhibit, and now she’s digging into the history of urban renewal in Atlanta, to understand how policies of displacement have shaped her community.
megsmith.bsky.social dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 10d
The new Mill Creek exhibit at @mohistorymuseum.bsky.social is a beautiful combo of calling out injustice while celebrating Black community and placemaking.

And for my medievalists, here’s a reminder that STL is full of medievalisms that are easily and often wielded as a tool of white supremacy.
A section of the Mill Creek exhibit at the Missouri History Museum. This shows a segment of a timeline focused on a cartoon of Louis IX looming over a neighborhood labeled a slum and removing it. He’s smiling and looks relatively benevolent. The cartoon is titled “How To Make A Great City Greater” Exhibit text: Editorial cartoon showing King Louis IX of France, St. Louis's namesake, clearing a slum area A survey conducted by the St. Louis Star and Times, a white newspaper, shows wide support for the bond issue with two conditions: "interracial co-operation of the 'highest type'" and retention of some historic churches. Mill Creek residents do not appear to be included in the survey. St. Louis Star and Times, May 28, 1948 Newspapers.com MCV406
November 18, 2025 at 2:02 PM
megsmith.bsky.social
The new Mill Creek exhibit at @mohistorymuseum.bsky.social is a beautiful combo of calling out injustice while celebrating Black community and placemaking.

And for my medievalists, here’s a reminder that STL is full of medievalisms that are easily and often wielded as a tool of white supremacy.
A section of the Mill Creek exhibit at the Missouri History Museum. This shows a segment of a timeline focused on a cartoon of Louis IX looming over a neighborhood labeled a slum and removing it. He’s smiling and looks relatively benevolent. The cartoon is titled “How To Make A Great City Greater” Exhibit text: Editorial cartoon showing King Louis IX of France, St. Louis's namesake, clearing a slum area A survey conducted by the St. Louis Star and Times, a white newspaper, shows wide support for the bond issue with two conditions: "interracial co-operation of the 'highest type'" and retention of some historic churches. Mill Creek residents do not appear to be included in the survey. St. Louis Star and Times, May 28, 1948 Newspapers.com MCV406
November 16, 2025 at 12:48 AM
megsmith.bsky.social
I’m well beyond “why apply,” I’m at “I cannot in good conscience apply.”

Gift link to the NYT piece on the NEH’s awarded projects since it was gutted:
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/15/a...
The concluding paragraphs of an article from the NYT on the current funding habits of the NEH. “A majority of the awards, which the agency has not publicized, are to scholars with ties to religious or conservative institutions, and support work on topics including the Bible's influence on the American founders, the history of the parental rights movement and the current ills of the humanities. Four are to people listed only as "unaffiliated independent scholar." Some of the agency's longstanding competitive grant programs remain. But Dr. Vanessa Northington Gamble, a physician and medical historian who served on the council from 2022 until she was fired October, said there had been a "chilling effect." "I know scholars who, seeing what has happened, are asking, why apply?" Dr. Gamble said. "The N.E.H. does not seem as open to a larger swath of humanities anymore."”
November 16, 2025 at 12:28 AM
Reposted by dr. meg smith
gquaggiotto.bsky.social
The Careful Consequence Checker,
a free, self-directed tool for understanding the impacts of building, buying or adopting an AI-powered product or service www.careful.industries/consequences Thank you @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social
Consequences — Careful Industries
A free tool to help you rapidly assess potential risks and issues with AI-powered products, tools and services.
www.careful.industries
November 14, 2025 at 4:10 AM
Reposted by dr. meg smith
siueiris.bsky.social
This Friday! Join us for our next Morning Bytes, where Dr. Jill Anderson (English) will present on her work producing a biographical chronology for the Catharine Maria Sedgwick Online Letters project.

#DigitalHumanities @mhs1791.bsky.social
IRIS Center Morning Bytes Jill Anderson, Ph.D. Department of English Friday, Nov. 14 10:00-11:00 AM IRIS Center (Peck 2226) Grappling with Contexts for an Archive of 19th-Century Letters In this Morning Bytes, Dr. Jill Anderson (English) will present her Spring 2025 sabbatical project, a series of contributions to the Catharine Maria Sedgwick Online Letters project contained within the Primary Source Cooperative at the Massachusetts Historical Society. The presentation will include a brief introduction to this influential early American writer and a discussion of Anderson's process in producing a biographical chronology connecting Sedgwick's early letters with 19th-century historical and personal contexts.
November 10, 2025 at 11:41 PM
Reposted by dr. meg smith
megsmith.bsky.social
The “no, this is Patrick” meme. In the top cell, Patrick from SpongeBob answers the phone. The text reads “is this the end of the last phase of the late woodland period?” In the bottom cell, Patrick responds “No, this is Patrick!”
November 5, 2025 at 2:22 PM
megsmith.bsky.social
My new favorite fact about the archaeological chronology of the American Bottom. What other names should we give to archaeological periods? Our current moment gives strong Chad energy.
An excerpt from Pauketat’s The Ascent of Chiefs, a monograph on political authority in Cahokia, describing the archaeological chronology of the American Bottom. The highlighted text reads “In the Northern Bottom Expanse, the end of the last phase of the Late Woodland period, called Patrick…”
November 5, 2025 at 2:18 PM
megsmith.bsky.social
CFP alert! If you're working on digitization, replicas and reproductions, living history practices, or other forms of surrogate sources, we'd love to see a proposal for organized sessions at the 2026 Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies. #DigitalHumanities #LivingHistory #CFP #MedievalSky
Call for Papers 13th Annual Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies 8-10 June 2026 Saint Louis University Representing the Past: Material and Digital Surrogates in the Practice of History Organizers: Thomas Morin, Saint Louis University, and Margaret Smith, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Increasing reliance on surrogates has transformed historians' avenues for inquiry and methodologies for interpreting information. The creation of digital surrogates has increased access to historical materials, but also raises questions about representation, conservation, and democratization. Parallel to these developments, the production of physical replicas of historical objects has also expanded immensely in the last several decades, bringing with it new teaching tools and research aids. But the production of these material surrogates has also heightened the tensions between access and authenticity. These replicas, both in the physical and digital spheres, have opened new paths and discussions about how scholars engage with history both academically and pedagogically, and in public spaces.   These sessions invite papers that explore the creation, use, and interpretation of surrogates in historical practice. How do digital and material surrogates mediate the relationship between researchers, objects, and audiences? How do they complement or challenge one another as forms of preservation and interpretation? We welcome contributions that address the processes of surrogate creation, the theoretical and ethical dimensions of representation, and the role of surrogates in pedagogy, public history, and digital humanities.   By bringing together scholars working across media, these panels seek to create dialogue on how historical knowledge is shaped through acts of reproduction, translation, and substitution. Prospective presenters should email their 100-200 word proposals to either thomas.morin@slu.edu or margars@siue.edu by 15 December 2025.
November 4, 2025 at 4:31 PM
megsmith.bsky.social
I’m watching a very old Jeopardy episode with a contestant who, when she was in high school, mailed her fingernails to a lady in California who would use them as false nails for celebrities. And like… I don’t think that lady was real?
November 2, 2025 at 12:32 AM
megsmith.bsky.social
Let this be a lesson to us all 🚵🍷
cbsnews.com CBS News @cbsnews.com · 25d
A French cyclist survived for three days after a horrendous 130-foot fall into a ravine, kept alive by the bottles of red wine he had in his shopping bag, police said.
Cyclist falls down 130-foot ravine in France, survives 3 days by drinking wine he had in shopping bag
A helicopter airlifted him to hospital, with a rescue doctor calling his survival "a miracle."
cbsn.ws
October 31, 2025 at 5:13 PM
megsmith.bsky.social
Happy Halloween from the definitely-not-haunted lamp that appeared at my metro station this morning!
A tall, sort of old-fashioned bronze lamp with no shade or bulb sitting on the sidewalk against the metro station fence. Oddly, no visible cord either — probably powered by ectoplasm or something
October 31, 2025 at 1:27 PM
Reposted by dr. meg smith
siueiris.bsky.social
This Wednesday! @hrambsy.bsky.social will share his work on the Black Lit Network, a #DigitalHumanities project that brings scholarship on African American literary studies to public audiences and provides innovative discovery tools that link people to books based on their interests.
Poster for a lecture co-sponsored by African American Literary Studies, the IRIS Center, and the Black Lit Network Dr. Howard Rambsy "The Literary Navigator: Curation and Discovery on the Black Literature Network" Wednesday, October 29, 11:00 AM Redmond Center classroom, Lovejoy Library 2nd floor
October 27, 2025 at 10:39 PM
megsmith.bsky.social
We’ll happily take donations from non-SIUE folks too, and although I can’t promise a university pennant, I do have some snazzy stickers I’d be happy to mail!
siueiris.bsky.social IRIS Center for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences @siueiris.bsky.social · Oct 21
📣Calling all SIUE faculty and staff📣

Join the SIUE Faculty and Staff Fundraising Campaign and make a direct impact on the programs and projects that inspire you most. If that inspiration includes digital humanities, experiential learning, and community-engaged pedagogy, keep reading!
A banner for an SIUE Foundation campaign targeting faculty and staff with the slogan “It’s a Cougar Thing, We Give Back”
October 21, 2025 at 1:56 PM
Reposted by dr. meg smith
siueiris.bsky.social
IRIS (fund 4332) fosters collaborations among students, faculty, and community members that use digital tools to explore the intersections of technology and culture. Donations support tech upgrades, equipment for check-out, and student workers and GAs who support the Center’s teaching and research.
October 21, 2025 at 1:48 PM
Reposted by dr. meg smith
siueiris.bsky.social
CODES (fund 4251) provides students the opportunity to work in small research teams with a faculty member and a community org to consider how the world's vital issues impact communities near SIUE. Donations fund student research supplies, graduation stoles, student mentors, internships, and more.
October 21, 2025 at 1:48 PM
Reposted by dr. meg smith
siueiris.bsky.social
📣Calling all SIUE faculty and staff📣

Join the SIUE Faculty and Staff Fundraising Campaign and make a direct impact on the programs and projects that inspire you most. If that inspiration includes digital humanities, experiential learning, and community-engaged pedagogy, keep reading!
A banner for an SIUE Foundation campaign targeting faculty and staff with the slogan “It’s a Cougar Thing, We Give Back”
October 21, 2025 at 1:48 PM
Reposted by dr. meg smith
librarymistress.bsky.social
"Mapping the Black Digital and Public Humanities" invites Black Digital and Public Humanities project directors to submit their projects to an interactive map and searchable database of 650+ international #Black #DigitalHumanities and #PublicHumanities projects. networks.h-net.org/group/announ...
Mapping the Black Digital and Public Humanities - Call for Projects | H-Net
Mapping the Black Digital and Public Humanities formally invites Black Digital and Public Humanities project directors to submit their projects to our interactive map and searchable database of 650+ i...
networks.h-net.org
September 29, 2025 at 1:58 PM
megsmith.bsky.social
People think coding is a sedentary job, but when you’re trying to debug a user location feature, it can involve a lot of steps.
A screenshot of a map with dozens of overlapping blue circles showing my location on a map with varying degrees of accuracy. The distribution of the circles shows that I was walking loops around my building to see how the location was behaving.
October 13, 2025 at 5:21 PM
megsmith.bsky.social
When the people demand donuts for Friday morning meetings, who am I to deny them? This morning’s border-crossing baked goods are brought to you by Donut Drive-in, Metrolink, and Madison County Transit.
A box of donuts from Donut Drive-In in St. Louis, which the box proudly describes as “Serving the finest Coffee in town.” Beyond the box, you can see the other side of a metro car and the Gateway Arch through the window.
October 10, 2025 at 1:08 PM
Reposted by dr. meg smith
wbez.org
University of Illinois campuses pays a for-profit company to recruit students for online programs — a practice that would be illegal if done by the universities themselves, a WBEZ investigation found.
Students for profit? University of Illinois campuses pay company per online student
Consumer protection advocates say the practice incentivizes the company to enroll as many students as possible, regardless of whether they'll benefit. The university says their standards aren't compromised.
trib.al
October 9, 2025 at 1:12 PM
megsmith.bsky.social
“Dusty archives” aside, this is what really got my goat. 1) DH is a sprawling field that comprehends a huge number of qualitative approaches, and 2) a facial recognition algorithm is absolutely a quantitative method. Don’t conflate how you would handle a task with what happens in the machine.
A quote from the historian Jürgen Matthäus quoted in the Guardian article: "Digital tools in the humanities have massively increased in use, but it's usually for the processing of mass data, not so much for qualitative analysis," he said about the potential for the use of Al in his field.
October 2, 2025 at 1:19 PM
megsmith.bsky.social
lol what a day for Josh Hawley to finally write me back about FY26 appropriations with a bullshit “don’t blame me 🤷‍♂️” email. I can’t even remember when I sent it.
An email from Senator Josh Hawley, the text of which reads “Dear Margaret, Thank you for contacting me about congressional appropriations in fiscal year 2026. I appreciate the time and effort you took to share your perspective with me on this important issue, and welcome the opportunity to respond. As you may know, Congress has the final say over government spending, and I take this responsibility very seriously. Although I am not a member of the Committee on Appropriations, I will keep your thoughts in mind as the Senate continues to work on its FY2026 appropriations legislation. As always, I truly appreciate hearing your concerns. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future on other issues important to you and your community. It is a privilege to be your voice in Congress. If you would like to get regular updates on my work in the Senate, please visit my website at www.hawley.senate.gov or follow me on social media at @SenHawleyPress. Sincerely, Josh Hawley United States Senator”
October 1, 2025 at 7:37 PM
Reposted by dr. meg smith
gconnolly314.bsky.social
Today at 3:30 p.m.
BOA Public Infrastructure Committee hearing on #BOAres111 for data centers.

Testify at city hall or via Zoom.
Email comments to: [email protected]

We need a moratorium, by ordinance, on #datacenterSTL

#ArmoryTIF #SLU353

Details:
www.stlouis-mo.gov/events/event...
October 1, 2025 at 2:55 PM