About this Event
Please join the Government Department and H-L Special Collections for a fascinating presentation on the George J. Mitchell papers and their critical role in ‘Writing Peace’
Thursday, November 2
4:30 pm
Nixon Lounge, Hawthorne-Longfellow Library, 3rd floor
Presenters: Annabel Harris and Shelley Deane, two experts with literal hands-on experience working with the Mitchell papers in Bowdoin's Special Collections.
Annabel Harris is a documentary editor with Quill, a digital humanities project based at Pembroke College, Oxford. She is currently working on 'Writing Peace' – an initiative aiming to develop a rounded view of the context and detail of the Northern Ireland peace process, through digital resource collections featuring innovative visualizations of primary source material. Harris will discuss Quill's work to date and plans to use the Mitchell papers to model the Good Friday Agreement.
Dr. Shelley Deane (PhD LSE) works on the ARINS (Analysing and Researching Ireland North and South) project for the Keough Naughton Institute for Irish Studies at the University of Notre Dame. She is a member of the John and Pat Hume Foundation Advisory Board. Deane will discuss the drafts charting the development of the Mitchell principles and how central they are to Quill’s ‘Writing Peace’ initiative.
Supplementing the presentation will be a Quill demo model and a display of a selection of Mitchell materials from Special Collections.
Writing Peace is an initiative of the Quill Project in Pembroke College and the Faculty of History at Oxford University which will bring together archives from across the political spectrum to create a rounded view of the context and detail of the peace talks in Northern Ireland from the late 1980s to early 2000s. Quill’s unique visualization of the primary source material will allow users to better understand the context within which key decisions and compromises were made, the origins of particular phrases, and the developing roles of individuals and political parties. Online resource collections and cutting-edge analytical tools will celebrate the full constellation of peace makers involved and will help scholars and practitioners alike to learn lessons for the future.
Sponsored by the George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives in the Hawthorne-Longfellow Library, and the Department of Government & Legal Studies with support from the John C. Donovan Lecture Fund.
Free and open to the public.