Started in 2022, the Undergraduate Summer Fellowship in the Digital Humanities (USFDH) is a 10-week summer program that teaches undergraduate students at UC Irvine to apply digital tools and methods to humanities research. Designing their own projects, the USFDH fellows expand their knowledge of related digital humanities skills like digital storytelling and mapping. A collaboration between the UCI School of Humanities and UCI Libraries, the fellowship also involves workshops and mentorship and culminates in a showcase.

In summer 2024, seven fellows completed the program. Using the skills they learned during their fellowship, each researched a topic of their choice and developed a digital project site. To help share their work with the broader UC Irvine community, research posters detailing the fellows’ projects will remain on display on the second floor of the Science Library through November 2024. The display is part of the UCI Libraries’ Student Display Pilot Program.

Summer Fellows’ Research Topics

This year’s fellows researched diverse topics and utilized a range of digital humanities tools:

• "Tracing Egg Foo Young within Books and Articles on Chinese American Cuisine” by Corinna Siu Mun Lee Chin traces the history of egg foo young to show how online debates about Chinese American food’s surface-level “superiority” over British Chinese food ignore the complex racial history of Chinese America. Corinna argues that these debates also involve the question of authenticity.
• “Life in the Fields: The Lives of Imperial Valley Farm Workers During the Emergence of the UFW” by Gisele Valdovinos is about the work, lives, and activism of farm workers in the 1960s–1970s Imperial Valley. Gisele tells this history through the perspectives of her family.
• “The Yost Theater Project: A Cultural Hub for Latinos in Orange County, California” by Sebastián Calderón aims to recover the history of the Yost Theater in downtown Santa Ana, California and give voice to the community and family who transformed it.
• “Transnational Perspectives: Filipino American Political Art, 1972–1986” by Ariana Vargas attempts to locate political art within the context of its production, illustrate the transnational orientation of Filipino American activists, and convey how the Filipino American diaspora uses artistic work to understand its relationship to the Philippines, despite not living there.
• “Legacies of the 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill: A Catalyst for Environmental Consciousness” by Adilene Garcia Hernandez demonstrates how visual/print media and galvanized activist groups sparked an environmental consciousness that led to legislative action, ecological laws, and an explosion of consciousness. This consciousness caused Americans to begin to reflect critically on an oil-saturated culture that had allowed and enabled a favored lifestyle.
• “Vision Through Films: Women's Internalization of a Surveyor Male under Men's Promise of Power” by Sissi Kang combines psychoanalysis, film theory, and feminist theory to explore the complexities of women’s representation in visual culture. Her project also analyzes how, in a seemingly feminist and sexually liberated era, women still internalize an ideal image that regulates and restrains them to the subject of beauty.
• “Built on Hope: The Feminist Star Wars Project” by Lily Victoria Amidon is a database of feminist viewing and reading guides for various elements of the Star Wars franchise. Looking to make the feminist perspective of Star Wars a bit more mainstream, it seeks to identify the feminist perspective and subversions of the hero's journey in Star Wars video games, movies, animated TV shows, social media and online fandom, and live-action shows.

The Fellows’ Experiences

Many of the 2024 USFDH fellows became more proficient in the digital humanities, and at least one fellow even discovered a new passion during their fellowship.

Sebastián, a history and anthropology major, for example, feels his fellowship helped him learn a critical skill.

“Learning to communicate through digital humanities (DH) is paramount in our ever-digitized lives, especially when sharing academic research with public audiences,” he said. “This summer fellowship challenged me to reconsider how I share knowledge and make histories. DH is more than digital tools, it is a framework for creative and effective intellectual discussion.”

Lily, a history and gender and sexuality studies major, had a similar point of view and expressed excitement at what she might do with her newly learned skills.

“I loved working on my project,” she said. “I am already seeing the skills from the fellowship pay off in courses I am taking this fall and in my internship with the California Queer History Project. I learned a lot about the methods and tools in digital humanities, and I am excited to see where I can take these skills and knowledge in my research outside this particular project. The showcase and fellowship really opened my eyes to the many ways students can use digital humanities methods to explore projects we're passionate about.”

As for Gisele, a history and education major, she was thankful to have bonded with her family and became interested in research as a result of her experience.

“My experience as a fellow has been very impactful to me in my academic career and in my life,” she said. “The fellowship helped me develop a love for research and allowed me to meet new people who share that same passion. My research project also allowed me to explore my family’s history and to tell their story as well as my community’s story.”

For more information on the summer fellowship, visit the Undergraduate Summer Fellowship in the Digital Humanities webpage.

About the UCI Libraries Student Displays Pilot Program

Launched in spring 2024, the UCI Libraries’ Student Displays Pilot Program shares the work and creativity of UCI students with the UCI and local community. Temporary displays in UCI's Langson and Science Libraries, created by students, can include original student art, writing, research, and more in both physical and digital formats.

Proposals are welcome from UCI students, student organizations, faculty, and staff.

To learn more about the program, see our program guidelines and proposal form and visit our program FAQs.

Header image: Fellows Ariana Vargas (far left), Lily Victoria Amidon, Sebastián Calderón, Gisele Valdovinos, Adilene Garcia Hernandez, and Corinna Siu Mun Lee Chin (far right).