AntCom

📣 Join us for the 24th Session of the Thesis Discussion Series!

We’re proud that two of our PhD students, Serena Cuomo and Francesco Aresti, will be presenting their research at this upcoming session hosted by CISPAC.

🗓 Date: 23 June
🕚 Time: 11:00
📍 Location: Lar do CISPAC

🔎 What to expect:
• Serena Cuomo will explore The image of Troy in the Trecento padano Veneto, examining how classical, Byzantine, and medieval visual traditions shape illuminated manuscripts.
• Francesco Aresti will present his research on heritage-making at the Tower of Hercules, analysing how narratives and actors have shaped the meaning of this UNESCO World Heritage site over time.
The Thesis Discussion Series provides a dynamic space for sharing ideas, fostering dialogue, and connecting early-stage researchers across disciplines.

👉 Don’t miss this opportunity to engage with cutting-edge PhD research!

📢 Seminar in Verona – “The Hidden Greek”

Join us for a fascinating two-day seminar organized by our team based at the University of Verona.

📅 18–19 June 2026
📍 Verona (Biblioteca Capitolare & Palazzo di Lingue)

This interdisciplinary event brings together palaeographers, Byzantinists, and computer scientists to explore the hidden layers of Greek texts preserved in the historic palimpsests CXX and C # # from the Biblioteca Capitolare. Through cutting-edge multispectral digitisation and collaborative research, the seminar sheds new light on a wide range of texts—including liturgical, musical, and homiletic traditions—revealing the richness of these remarkable manuscripts.

💻 Can’t attend in person? Join via Zoom!

Find the full programme here:https://cdn.docs.univr.it/documenti/Seminario/documenti/documenti854222.pdf

A unique opportunity to dive into the intersection of history, philology, and digital humanities—and uncover what lies beneath the surface of ancient texts.

🌍 What is “hidden” cultural heritage—and why does it matter?

Not all heritage is visible in museums, monuments, or official histories. Many cultural practices, memories, and meanings remain hidden, overlooked, or marginalized—yet they play a crucial role in how communities understand identity, belonging, and the past.
The Hidden Cultural Heritage project, led by our Ant Alexander Björklund Hammar, aims to uncover these less visible forms of heritage and explore who defines heritage, what gets recognized, and what gets left out.

💡 By studying hidden cultural heritage, the project helps:
• Give voice to underrepresented communities
• Broaden our understanding of what counts as heritage
• Inform more inclusive cultural and heritage policies
• Highlight everyday practices and stories that often go unnoticed

📝 You can contribute to this research!
We are inviting people to take part in a short questionnaire about how they perceive and experience cultural heritage.

👉 Take the survey here:
https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=fcKXmj64lEazU1S9vxirW9uiVC8yGgdNoMoLQEBf2AZUMkgzQ1dCVjNYSVI1WEJKUVc3TDQxWTdSNS4u&route=shorturl

⏱️ It only takes a few minutes, and your responses will directly support ongoing research.

Learn more about the project:
https://www.sdu.dk/en/om-sdu/institutter-centre/iks/forskning/forskningsprojekter/hidden-cultural-heritage

🙏 Please share this post to help us reach a wider audience!

🎬✨ From research to the museum floor: Emotional Subtitling Workshop in Pontevedra ✨🎬

We’re proud to highlight an inspiring initiative led by our PhD fellow, Serena Cuomo, in collaboration with the Museum of Pontevedra: the citizen science workshop “Emotional Subtitling: Are the emotions of art still universal?”, taking place on 11 June at the Museo de Pontevedra (Edificio Castelao).

💡 The idea? To explore how we understand emotions in art—across time, cultures, and audiences. Are the feelings conveyed in historical artworks still universal, or do they change depending on who we are today? Drawing on work with ancient iconographies and Greco-Roman visual culture, the workshop also invites participants to reflect on how symbolic gestures, mythological motifs, and visual storytelling from the past still resonate (or not) with contemporary viewers.

📍 Read more about the workshop and how to join:
https://museo.depo.gal/web/museo/-/actividade-obradoiro-de-subtitulado-emocional

👏 A big congratulations to Serena for bringing AntCom research into dialogue with museum practice and public participation!

📣 Conference Presentation at AIUCD 2026

On Thursday, June 4, our AntCom members Panagiotis Leontaridis and Giacomo Marchioro (University of Verona), together with Glen Robson (IIIF Consortium), will present their paper “Modeling and Visualizing Palimpsests with IIIF Presentation API 3.0” at the XV Annual Conference of the Association for Humanities Computing and Digital Culture (AIUCD) in Cagliari, Italy.

🎓 Theme: Digital Technologies and Public Engagement: Practices and Perspectives in the Digital Humanities.

📄 The paper addresses the challenge of representing palimpsests—multi-layered manuscripts with erased and overwritten texts—whose complexity is often lost in linear digital displays. It proposes a framework based on the IIIF Presentation API 3.0 that enables richer navigation and interaction, including switching between reconstructed and current sequences, exploring spectral layers, and isolating undertext elements, offering a more faithful and flexible digital representation of these intricate artifacts.

👏 We look forward to inspiring exchanges and new perspectives at this year’s conference!

🎓 Guest Speaker Invitation at Freie Universität Berlin

We are proud to share that our PhD fellow, Francesco Aresti has been invited as a guest speaker for the university course “A Corner of Europe: Galician Culture” at Freie Universität Berlin (FU Berlin).

The course offers an engaging introduction to Galician culture through artistic, cultural, and political perspectives, exploring themes such as history, identity, and stereotypes within broader Iberian and European contexts.

During the session on May 28, Francesco will present his doctoral research and contribute to the course’s comparative approach by examining heritage systems and discourses in Galicia and Sardinia.
The aim is to foster discussion and deepen understanding of contemporary cultural dynamics alongside students and faculty.

We look forward to this exciting exchange of ideas and the opportunity to contribute to an international academic dialogue! 🌍📚

Meet our final keynote speaker for Classics Today: Decentering and Digitalization

👉 Aglae Pizzone, University of Southern Denmark

Aglae Pizzone works at the intersection of Byzantine studies, manuscript cultures, and intellectual history, with a particular focus on how knowledge is transmitted and transformed across time. As one of the principal investigators of the AntCom project, she is deeply engaged in developing innovative and collaborative approaches to the study of the premodern world.

At the summer school, Aglae will contribute with two lectures. She will present “Whose Classics?”, exploring how the concept of “the classics” is shaped, shared, and reinterpreted across cultures and contexts. She will also co-present the keynote “New Ways of Reading” together with Lars Boje Mortensen, focusing on how recent interdisciplinary and digital developments are reshaping how we engage with historical texts.

If you are interested in manuscript cultures and new perspectives on the classical past, these sessions are not to be missed.

🔗 Check here our course’s syllabus: https://antcom.eu/summer-school-syllabus/

📣 International Seminar in Verona | AntCom Project

We are delighted to share an upcoming event organized by the AntCom team based at the University of Verona:

“Virgilio (invisibile) a Verona” — an international seminar dedicated to the collaborative transcription of Virgil’s works preserved in the manuscript XL of the Biblioteca Capitolare di Verona.

🗓 29 May 2026, 14:00
📍 Aula T.8, Palazzo di Lingue, University of Verona
💻 Remote participation available via Zoom

The seminar will present the results of a collaborative and citizen science initiative, bringing together scholars, students, and local schools to explore the reception and transmission of Virgil’s texts.

The programme features contributions from international experts and highlights key themes such as late antique commentary traditions, cultural memory, and the rediscovery of classical texts, alongside presentations of the project outcomes by participating schools with high school students presenting their work as true research professionals.

We warmly invite you to join this inspiring exchange between academia and the wider community! 🌍📚

Meet our next keynote speaker for Classics Today: Decentering and Digitalization

👉 Lars Boje Mortensen, University of Southern Denmark

Lars Boje Mortensen is a leading scholar of medieval Latin literature and intellectual history, with a strong interest in how texts are transmitted, interpreted, and recontextualized across time. Working at the crossroads of philology and broader cultural history, he explores new ways of reading and understanding premodern sources.

On August 6, Lars will present his keynote New Ways of Reading (co-presented with Aglae Pizzone). In this lecture, he will introduce innovative perspectives on engaging with historical texts, highlighting how digital and methodological developments can reshape how we approach and interpret the past.

If you are interested in medieval studies, textual scholarship, and new methodological approaches in the humanities, this is a keynote you won’t want to miss.

🔗 Learn more about the summer school programme: https://antcom.eu/sdu-international-summer-school-2026/

Stay tuned as we introduce our final keynote speaker!

Meet our next keynote speaker for Classics Today: Decentering and Digitalization

👉 Thomas Kaarsted, University Library of Southern Denmark & SDU Citizen Science Knowledge Center

Thomas Kaarsted is Principal Consultant and Head of Communications at the University Library of Southern Denmark, as well as Head of the SDU Citizen Science Knowledge Center. His work focuses on open science, citizen science, and co-creation, with a particular emphasis on how libraries and cultural institutions can act as hubs for public engagement and societal impact. Thomas has extensive experience working at the intersection of research, communication, and public participation, and he has played a central role in developing citizen science and citizen humanities initiatives across disciplinary boundaries.

On August 6, Thomas will present his keynote Premodern Humanities and Citizen Engagement. In this talk, he explores how premodern humanities can be reimagined through citizen engagement, participation, and co-creation. Drawing on experiences from citizen humanities and open research practices, Thomas will discuss how involving wider publics can decenter traditional academic authority, enrich research questions, and create new, inclusive ways of connecting past societies with present-day communities.

If you are interested in citizen humanities, public engagement, and new models for doing humanities research in a digital and participatory age, this keynote is one you won’t want to miss.

Stay tuned as we introduce our final keynote speakers!