dr. meg smith
• Interim Director & Research Asst Prof of Digital Humanities at @siueiris.bsky.social
• Medieval/early modern Irish historian
• Public transit enthusiast & urban cyclist
• Die-hard Packers fan
• Avid quilter/xstitcher
• Margaret, not Megan
• She/her
• STL
- 💌Mail day💌 I’ve got 150 of these suckers, and I’m willing to share. Big ups to the Ink Spot, a local union print shop that printed these same day for me! #StLouis #STL #stlwx
- I just put in an order for 150 postcards with the snow-clearing ordinance to send to local businesses. No more hiding behind feigned ignorance! #StLouis #STL #stlwx
- Reposted by dr. meg smithSidewalks untreated at the Clayton Rd/Lindbergh Schnucks, bus stop there on Lindbergh where many Schnucks workers arrive/depart. A very narrow sidewalk piled with icy, craggy snow thrown from plows. A pedestrian who tried to walk on this stuff risks slipping into 40mph traffic.
- An infuriating call with Walgreens, who maintain it's the city's job to clear sidewalks, has driven me to LinkedIn. Gotta fight fire (corporate neglect) with fire (the most cursed, corporate platform). Here's the relevant code, in case anyone else wants to be a nuisance. #StLouis #STL #stlwx
- Every company that plows their parking lot while neglecting their sidewalks is not only flouting their legal obligation. They are sending a clear message about which of their customers and neighbors they deem worthy of care and access. Looking at you, Walgreens and Target. #StLouis #stl #stlwx
- Reposted by dr. meg smithAnd don't talk to me about "who's paying", jerks -- you eliminated the entire program area that funded so much of my field in this country (RIP NEH Office of Digital Humanities) and laid off all our program officers. You think we're just going to give up and go home? #DHmakes
- New scam journal alert for #DigitalHumanities! Digital Humanities and Society Studies - not just predatory, but fully AI-generated with fake authors (or in at least one case, a recognizably stolen name). The publisher's been flagged before as being shady, but this journal is particularly egregious.
- The hardest part of bringing baked goods to work is not forgetting them on the way out the door. The second hardest part is maintaining structural integrity on a 2-hour, 3-connection transit commute. Thoughts and prayers for my honey cake…
- Well this is fucking bleak.
- Well, WTF ‽ #stl www.stlmag.com/news/st-loui...
- Daycare gave us a spare copy of Ada’s Christmas card this morning, where she is doing her best impression of an ASPCA commercial. So belated merry Christmas from Ada, everyone. I promise she’s spoiled rotten and very happy.
- Reposted by dr. meg smithJoin us for a series of workshops on teaching and researching with digital tools! The IRIS Center Morning Bytes series offers hands-on tutorials, activities and lesson plans, and spotlights on ongoing digital humanities projects. #DigitalHumanities
- 🤩 Thanks again to @literaturegeek.bsky.social for immortalizing this line from the NEH wake session at ACH. If I have a scholarly motto, this is it — infrastructure is mutual obligation and mutual benefit. #DigitalHumanities #DHMakes
- RIP Packers postseason, but I’m still celebrating Wisconsin. Quick little pre-semester make, the Hello Wisconsin pillow from Crimson Tate.
- Reposted by dr. meg smithI took Tucker’s piece as an inspiration for my own post for the Civics of Technology and applying the Baldwin Test to investigate claims about educational technology:
- Hey academic podcasters, any best practices for including references? I’ve seen reference lists in episode descriptions and companion websites. Are there other alternatives? What’s worked best for you? #AcademicSky #podcast
- We swapped out a sofa for a loveseat, and we may have achieved too much proximity. Maybe a good bonding opportunity? Or possibly an ignition point — time will tell
- Reposted by dr. meg smithICYMI: Check out this @jitp.bsky.social article for assignments and activities that use small data sets to engage students with critical data literacies and place-based research. These are quick bloom-and-fade activities that are easy to build into a syllabus! #DigitalHumanities
- It’s publication day! Check out this new piece from @megsmith.bsky.social and Laura Milsk Fowler on #DigitalHumanities pedagogy. Meg and Laura offer bite-sized but powerful classroom activities that teach humanistic approaches to data and build tech skills and confidence to tackle larger projects.
- Reposted by dr. meg smith#DH Awards 2025 nominations open until 2026-02-27. What #DigitalHumanities resources updated in 2025 do you think deserve recognition of some sort? Nomination categories at: dhawards.org/dhawards2025...
- Much as I’d like to think that I’m Kathleen Kelly in You’ve Got Mail, I’m comfortable enough to admit I’m really Frank.
- Reposted by dr. meg smithEverybody's going to be reposting this. As they should. "Privately funded educational technology is a threat to the very idea of public education."
- snoot shelf
- Professional snoops
- Already watched Knives Out and jonesing for more murder, hellfire and brimstone, and possible revenants? Well! 125 years ago today, William Le Queux published "The Mystery of Montmartre" in @stltoday.com. I threw together a little edition for the Christmas ghost story crowd. #DigitalHumanities
- Happy holidays to us! The best gifts are free (open-access).
- It’s publication day! Check out this new piece from @megsmith.bsky.social and Laura Milsk Fowler on #DigitalHumanities pedagogy. Meg and Laura offer bite-sized but powerful classroom activities that teach humanistic approaches to data and build tech skills and confidence to tackle larger projects.
- Reposted by dr. meg smith🎉🎉 Huge congrats to IRIS co-founder Dr. Kristine Hildebrandt on being named Distinguished Research Professor of English! The award recognizes her significant achievements in the field of linguistics & her many contritions to research, mentorship, and DH infrastructure at SIUE and beyond.
- Every time I send a teams message on a Saturday and people respond immediately, TWO angels lose their wings.
- Reposted by dr. meg smithHistorian focusing on early modern book culture here. I am not sure that feeding a private company with all our past handwritings from archives is a solution or a way forward. Google‘s AI studio is a data trap. #skystorians
Gemini’s ability to read handwritten archival documents has importance beyond the humanities. It opens new frontiers for scientific research and collaboration with the humanities. foundhistory.org/seeing-old-s... #ClimateScience #DataScience #Agriculture #Archives #Research #LandGrant #AI
- Reposted by dr. meg smithIt has been an incredible whirlwind of a semester! Over the last four months: ✏️ We conducted over 50 class visits to teach digital humanities skills. (More than a whole course's worth of classroom time!) 📒 And oh yeah, we also ran a new course this semester on digital curation and storytelling! 1/
- Reason #82 why I keep a sewing machine at work: when I just need a *little* more time to finish a dress, I can hem it at the office.
- Another request for recs, this time for a syllabus! Social scientists, what examples of survey analysis have you found most accessible and engaging for freshmen? Ideally it would be a scholarly article, but journalistic pieces are good too! #sociology #polisci #academicsky
- Hey parents and historians, any history book recs for an 8-year-old? Graphic novels are a big plus! My nephew is suddenly into history, but mostly via the I Survived series and youtube videos of dubious quality. I’d love to find something that’s compelling and engaging, but not so sensationalist.
- Reposted by dr. meg smithFraming GenAI as a battle between teachers and students is a red herring. Students and educators are on the same side. The real opposition are the data extraction firms and brokerages and their allies among the managerial class.
- Reposted by dr. meg smithCFP alert! If you're working on digitization, replicas and reproductions, living history practices, or other forms of surrogate sources, we'd love to see a proposal for organized sessions at the 2026 Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies. #DigitalHumanities #LivingHistory #CFP #MedievalSky
- Digital humanities and transit. Yup, that tracks.
- Hello moths, The harvest has arrived: anisota.net/harvest It's like Spotify Wrapped, but for Bluesky and the ATmosphere. 🌾 See your most-used words, discover who you interact with most, explore your posting patterns, and find all sorts of fun insights.
- St. Louis is getting an early start on snow accumulation, and I’m still holding a grudge towards businesses who utterly neglected their obligation to clear their sidewalks last year. If you’d feel inspired to badger some big box stores about their sidewalks, feel free to adapt! #STL #stlouis #stlwx
- Hey, do you want to wear your love of digital humanities and cultural recovery on your sleeve? @recoveryhubaww.bsky.social has you covered! Make a donation of $50 or more between now and Christmas and receive your choice of a tote bag or t-shirt! #DigitalHumanities #AmLit
- Your gift supports the Hub’s free services for digital recovery practitioners, including consultation, scholarly and pedagogical peer review, and long-term cultivation of digital projects. Donate here: connect.siue.edu/g/recovery-h...
- Reposted by dr. meg smithIt's #GivingTuesday! Every dollar that comes into IRIS goes back out into community-engaged research, digital pedagogy, and #DigitalHumanities infrastructure. Throughout the day, we'll share some of the ways that your giving helps us support our communities. You can give to IRIS through fund 4332.
- Most midwestern families have a stockpile of Ugly Hats. (If you think you don’t, check your grandparents’ closet.) I am here to tell you: keep the Ugly Hat! What it lacks in form, it more than makes up in function. You will not find a warmer hat than the Ugly Hat. And your grandma probably made it.
- 500 miles apart but completely in sync, all the Smiths have finally watched Kpop Demon Hunters and come to precisely the same conclusion about my sister’s animals.
- And for my next trick, sweet potatoes with whipped feta and hot honey! Now that we’ve eaten it, I don’t think the overpriced hot honey was a necessary purchase. You could totally just add chili flakes to the whipped feta and use regular honey.
- Managed to squeeze a couple recipes into my sister’s packed and highly regimented cooking schedule today. First up: a custardy pecan pie, a century-old recipe from @tastinghistory.bsky.social.
- Managed to squeeze a couple recipes into my sister’s packed and highly regimented cooking schedule today. First up: a custardy pecan pie, a century-old recipe from @tastinghistory.bsky.social.
