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Kristen Schuster (they/them) | Lecturer in Digital Humanities | University of Southampton

Research, Publications & Presentations

RESEARCH STATEMENT

My research reflects a humanities-oriented approach to conceptualizing intersections between curation, data and technology. As an information scientist working in the digital humanities, my research explores the challenges and possibilities for collaborative interdisciplinary work through the use of digital methods. Since completing my doctorate, I have contributed my knowledge and skills to research and practice that inform a practice-based critique of digital humanities research methods and infrastructures. My role as metadata specialist for the initial phases of the Digital Edition of Vetusta Monumenta and my contributions to work packages for the PARTHENOS Project facilitated my involvement in international conversations about research good practices for digital methods, Linked Open Data, and research infrastructures. I have used these experiences to sustain my engagement in research about best practices for fostering critical thinking about technologies that ethically enable data science practices within multicultural and interdisciplinary networks.

My publications Manage Your Data: Information Management Strategies for DH Practitioners and Digital Cultural Heritage: Collaborating with Students and Discovering Lost Museums reflect my commitment to inclusive and international research that is accessible to a range of scholars and practitioners. My work as co-editor for the Routledge International Handbook of Research Methods in Digital Humanities is representative of my engagement in creative approaches to digital methods and humanistic forms of inquiry to promote critical and creative transdisciplinary research. Likewise, my work as a co-editor for a bi-lingual special on digital experimental museology for Herança: Revista de História, Património e Cultura, forthcoming article in Critical AI titled Thick Description for Critical AI: Provocations for a Multisensory Approach and a forthcoming co-edited volume for the Bloomsbury Studies in Digital Culture reflect my commitment to exploring the intersections between digital methods methods, social science theories and humanistic forms of inquiry.

Outside of my work in the digital humanities, I have also developed projects examining men and masculinities. One of my substantive research projects examines the intersections of gender, professional identities, and organizational cultures in feminized professions. Using librarianship as a context for situating gender at the centre of my exploration of professional identities has highlighted nuances in the ways men develop practices and approaches that disrupt normative assumptions about labour and gender. My innovative research methods synthesize sociological critiques of labour and organizational histories to reposition men as complex actors within cultural systems that reproduce problematic narratives about masculinities. Combining sociological methods with feminist qualitative methods have allowed me to centre men as valid research subjects and shaped my inclusive and participatory approach to critiquing the concept of feminized professions and labour. I am using findings from this research project to develop a monograph titled Crisis, What Crisis? Theorizing New Approaches to Men, Masculinities and the Information Society, and my proposal is under review at academic presses in the US and UK.

My emerging project will sustain my creative and transdisciplinary approaches to research on men and masculinities. I am investigating working class British culture through leisure activities. I intend to develop an interdisciplinary project that uses social histories of sport and leisure to describe and situate networks of British men who participate in pigeon racing. Using spatial humanities methods, sociolinguistics and histories of sport will be a means to resituate working class identities within post-Brexit narratives about class identity and ‘Britishness.’ Instead of producing a traditional scholarly monograph, I plan to develop creative and interactive outputs that push the boundaries of data visualization and storytelling. To support this project, I am developing small grant proposals to prototype non traditional scholarly outputs, and I intend to develop an ESRC grant proposal within the next two years.

PUBLICATIONS

Monographs & Edited volumes

Schuster, K. (2025). How to engage with the politics of masculinities. In Diversifying and Decolonising Research Series. Sage.

Ohge, C. & Schuster, K. (eds). (forthcoming, 2024). Book History in Bits: Text Technologies, Remediation, and Creative Curation in the Digital Humanities. Bloomsbury

Salciute Civilien, and G. Schuster, K. eds. (March, 2023). Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Digital Experiment in Museology and Museum Design. Special issue in Herança: Revista de História, Património e Cultura. https://doi.org/10.29073/heranca.v6i1

Schuster, K. & Dunn, S. eds. (2020). Handbook on Research Methods in Digital Humanities. Routledge.

Peer Reviewed Articles

Schuster, K. (2024, under review). Bros, Hooligans and Anarchists: Reflections on Men Working in British Academic Libraries.

Schuster, K. (2024, under review). What About the Men? Re-Evaluating Men, Masculinities and Academic Librarianship.

Schuster C. & Schuster K. (2023, forthcoming). Thick Description for Critical AI: Provocations for a Multisensory Approach. Critical AI. Duke University Press. ISSN: 2834-703X

Schuster, K. and Stewart, K. (2021) Using constructive alignment to support Metaliteracy in international classrooms. Journal for the Association for Library Science Education (JELIS).

Schuster, K. and Grainger, J. (2021). Digital cultural heritage: Collaborating with students and discovering lost museums. Education for Information, 37(1). https://content.iospress.com/journals/education-for-information/37/1

Wang, N.E.; Kelley, B.; Price, L and Schuster, K. (June 2020). Beyond the multidisciplinary in fan studies: Learning how to talk among disciplines. Transformative Works and Cultures.

Schuster, K. (2019). Libraries and literacy: Andrew Carnegie’s philanthropy in the American Midwest. Philanthropy & Education, 2(2), 75–94. DOI 10.2979/phileduc.2.2.04

Schuster, K. (2015). Digitization and cataloging. International Journal of the Book, 13(4).

Book Chapters

Schuster, K. (under review). Describing New Media: Strategies and Recommendations for Teaching Structured Data in Multi-Disciplinary Humanities Contexts. In Book History in Bits: Text Technologies, Remediation, and Creative Curation in the Digital Humanities. Bloomsbury

Schuster, K. & Reyes V. (2020). Manage Your Data: Information Management Strategies for DH Practitioners In Handbook on Research Methods in Digital Humanities. Routledge. Dunn, S & Schuster, K. (eds.), Routledge.

Schuster, K. & Gillis, S (2018, March). Digital humanities and image metadata: Improving access through shared practices. In Digital Humanities, Libraries and Partnership Kear, R. & Johanson, K. (eds.) New York, NY: Elsevier Inc.

AWARDS & GRANTS

Awards:

Schuster, K. (2019). Nomination for King’s Education Award: Inclusive Teaching. King’s College, London, King’s Academy

Schuster, K. (2018) Notable Dissertations: Turning student research into everyday practice. American Libraries: The Magazine of the American Library Association, May p. 50.

Grants

University of Southampton Faculty Strategic Research Fund

Amount: £864.30
Funding Body: University of Southampton
Role: Primary Investigator
Duration May 2024
Project: Flights of Fancy: Men, Pigeons and Leisure in Post-Industrial Britain

University of Southampton Center for Higher Education Practice Enhancement Funds

Amount: £4,712.67
Funding Body: University of Southampton
Role: Co Investigator
Duration September 2023-July 2024
Project: Attitudes, aptitudes, and applications of AI-enhanced assessment in Humanities curricula at Southampton

King’s College London Department of Digital Humanities QR Impact Funding Scheme

Amount: £1,500
Funding Body: King’s College London
Role: Principal Investigator
Duration: March 2023
Project: Workshop and masterclass on men and masculinities at Australia National University

King’s College London Global Engagement Partnership Fund

Amount: £4,546
Funding Body: King’s College London
Role: Co-Investigator
Duration: June-August 2021
Collaborators: Gabriele Salciute Civiliene, Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London

Faculty of Arts and Humanities Education Fund

Suspended due to Covid-19
Amount: £2,000
Funding Body: King’s College London, Faculty of Arts and Humanities
Role: Co-Investigator
Collaborators: Dr. Brit Kelley, Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London

Faculty of Arts and Humanities International Collaboration Award

Suspended due to Covid-19
Amount: £2,085.39
Funding Body: King’s College London, Faculty of Arts and Humanities
Grant: Data Science and ICT4D: Paraguay
Duration: June-August, 2020
Role: Co-Investigator
Collaborators: Dr. C. Schuster, School of Archeology and Anthropology, Australia National University

PARTHENOS (Pooling Activities, Resources and Tools for Heritage E-research Networking, Optimization and Synergies)

Award amount: €12M
Distributed to King’s College London: £286,812
Funding body: European Research Council (ERC)
Grant: European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program (Agreement #654119)
Duration: 2015-2019
Roles: Co-investigator WP2 (Community involvement and requirements) and Co-investigator WP 7 (Skills, professional development and advancement)

Vetusta Monumenta: A Digital Edition and Antiquarian Archive

Amount: $285,508
Funding body: National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)
Grant: Scholarly Editions and Translations Grant (Application #RQ255691-17)
Duration: 2017-2020
Role: Co-investigator Technical Editor

SELECTED WORKSHOPS, INVITED TALKS & MODERATED CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

Workshops
Dublin Core Training Session. The Postal Museum, 2024

Linked Data for Digital Humanities. Oxford Digital Humanities Summer School, 2023, 2024

Invited Talks

Schuster, K. (March 2024). Libraries, Archives, and Museums in the UK. Talk given for students in LIS 490 International and Comparative Librarianship at Simmons University iSchool.

Schuster, K. ‘More than Human Leisure: Men, Pigeons and Sport’ talk given at University of Southampton, Center for Contemporary and Modern Writing Research Day, January 2024

Schuster, K. (October, 2023). Tender Technicians? Reprising Histories of Progressive Era Librarianship. Talk given for students in ISLT_9419 American Library History at the University of Missouri iSchool.

Schuster, K. (July 2023). Why Do DH? Theoretical Considerations In/About DH. Talk given for the School for Advanced Studies Digital Humanities Lab.

Schuster, K. (April, 2023). Semantics and Syntax and Ontologies, Oh My! Strategies for teaching linked data in the digital humanities. Centre for Digital Scholarship, Weston Library, Oxford University

Schuster, K. (March 2023). DH and cultural heritage partnerships: Collaborative learning through experimentation. Centre for Digital Humanities Research. Australia National University.

Schuster, K. (June 2022). Practical Approaches to Digital Curation. Mapping Migration and the Challenges of Digital Curation. Wiener Holocaust Memorial Library.

Schuster, K. (2021, September). Bridging Research and Practice with Methods and Methodologies: Or Why We Should Invest in Project Based Learning. Teaching Digital Methods in the Humanities and Social Sciences: Uppsala University

Schuster, K. & Reyes, V. (2021). Unwaged labor: Work/life balance and information management during COVID-19. DARIAH Friday Frontiers

Dunn, S. and Schuster K. (2020, November). Methods for Digital Humanities Research. Anna Foka (Instructor of Record). 4DH410 Digital Humanities Research Methods, Linnaeus University.

Schuster, K. (2020, November). A brief introduction to metadata. Christopher Ohge and Martin Steer (Instructors). Lecture conducted for Introduction to Digital Humanities, Riga Technical University.

Schuster, K. (2020, March). Functional requirements for linked data: Sharing data across cultural heritage collection. Lecture conducted at the School for Advanced Studies.

Schuster, K. (2020, February). Semantics and syntax: Finding, sharing and using digital cultural heritage. How digital archives change history research – the case of Sardinia. Lecture conducted at King’s College London.

Moderated Conference Presentations

Schuster K. & Garnet, V. (2024, September). Inclusive Workflows to Address Vicarious and Secondary Trauma in Humanities Research: Insights and Suggestions from a UK/IE Community Interest Group. Presented at Workflows: Digital Methods for Reproducible Research Practices in the Arts and Humanities. DARIAH Annual Event: Lisbon, Portugal.

Schuster, K. (2024, May). Not all men: Queering Masculinities and Information Economies. Presented at the first annual Queer Joy Symposium, University of Southampton.

Schuster, K. & Reyes, V. (2022, April). Gender and Personal Information Spaces During COVID-19. ASIS&T 24 Hour Conference.

Schuster, K. & Reyes, V. (2021, October). Gender, Personal Information Spaces and DH. Who Has Access to the Digital Humanities? DH Network Event.

Schuster, K. & Reyes, V. (2021, October). Exploring Data Friction: Recommendations for Cultural Heritage and Digital Humanities. Museum Entanglements Workshop: Goethe University.

Schuster, K. (2021, June). Bros, Hooligans and Anarchists: Describing Men to Smash the Patriarchy. Library History Seminar XIV: Libraries Without Borders

Schuster, K (2020, September). Not nothing: Functional requirements for representing ideas. Society for the 23rd Congress, International Committee of Historical Sciences. SHARP Panel: Digital Humanities. Poznan, Poland.
Panel cancelled due to Covid-19 travel restrictions and public health advice.

Kelley, B. & Schuster, K. (2020, March). Lost in Translation, London Edition: Reimagining the Commonplaces of U.K. Higher-ed. Conference on College Composition & Communication (CCCC). Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Cancelled due to Covid-19 travel restrictions and public health advice.

Schuster, K. & Stewart, K. (2019, September). Integrating Metaliteracy into knowledge organization curriculum: Designing inclusive curriculum for international classrooms. Paper presented at the annual Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) conference. Knoxville Tennessee

Kelley, B. & Schuster, S. (2019, September). Gender, community and narrative: Exploring social aspects of fanfiction. Innovative Pedagogies Special Interest Group Panel at the annual Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) conference. Knoxville Tennessee.