Adapting Kafka

Abstract: Our Digital Humanities project Adapting Kafka creates an interactive website that provides quantitative statistical data and qualitative scholarly analysis of all editions, translations, and adaptations of Franz Kafka’s best-known novel The Trial (1925). Once completed, our website will offer users the ability to search and visualize our database and explore the relationships of these resources across multiple dimensions and fields. Adapting Kafka will also offer samples of selected works through Scalar, a content-rich platform for scholarly projects online. Users can explore different editions and translations of The Trial and study audio-visual recordings of musical arrangements, theater productions and other kinds of adaptations found in our database. These samples will be augmented by editorial annotations and peer-reviewed essays on major topics relevant to Kafka Studies.

  • Faculty
    • Carsten Strathausen (SLLC)
  • Graduate participants
    • Andrei Kazakov (English)
  • Undergraduate participants
    • Jackson Estwanick (German)
    • Benjamin Mahurin (German)
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Digital Discovery and Exploration of Ancient Amazonian Geoglyphs 
  • Faculty
    • Robert Walker (Anthropology)
    • Jeffrey Ferguson (MURR + Anthropology)
  • Graduate participants
    • Jim Elghammer (Anthropology)
  • Undergraduate participants
    • Zachary Smith (Geology)
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Participatory Filmmaking with Refugee and Diverse Youth 

Abstract: This project seeks to support identity development, social integration, and belonging for refugee newcomer youth in in Central Missouri through participatory filmmaking with local diverse youth. Youth participants will develop the skills necessary to co-create documentary films, where they can tell their own and their communities’ stories, collaborate with each other, and explore cinematic language as a tool for self-expression. The resulting films will contribute to increased understanding among host community members of the diverse experiences, cultural wealth, and individual potential of youth of color and those with migration backgrounds. 

  • Faculty
    • Melissa Hauber-Özer (Learning, Teaching, and Curriculum / CEHD)
    • Viviana Goelkel Garcia (SVS)
  • Graduate participants
    • Najia Sulaimankhail (Public Affairs)
  • Undergraduate participants
    • Evie Grasinski (Film Studies)
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The Age of All Women: The Becoming of Younousse Seye

Abstract: Younousse Seye, born 1940, is among the first generation of Senegal’s contemporary artists. A self-taught multimedia artist whose work has been exhibited and collected across the world, an outspoken feminist Pan-Africanist, and an actor whose credits include films with one of the pioneers of African cinema, Ousmane Sembene – Seye has had a remarkable career in both the plastic arts and film. This project reclaims Seye’s central role within African art and politics via a short film that celebrates her legacy and examines the contingencies that govern the remembrance of Black women.

  • Faculty
    • Merve Fejzula (History)
  • Graduate participants
    • Mackenzie Tor (History)
  • Undergraduate participants
    • Krystna Le (History)