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James Baker

James Baker

SSI fellow

University of Southampton

I am the Director of Digital Humanities at the University of Southampton. A historian by training, I work at the intersection of history, cultural heritage, and digital technologies. I am a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a member of the Arts and Humanities Research Council Peer Review College, a convenor of the Institute of Historical Research Digital History seminar, a Trustee of the Programming Historian (Charity Number 1195875), and academic lead for the Southampton Digital Preservation Advisory Unit.

In 2021, I begin a major new Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project ‘Beyond Notability: Re-evaluating Women’s Work in Archaeology, History and Heritage, 1870 – 1950‘. Previous externally funded research projects have focused on legacy descriptions of art objects (‘Legacies of Catalogue Descriptions and Curatorial Voice: Opportunities for Digital Scholarship‘, Arts and Humanities Research Council), the preservation of intangible cultural heritage (‘Coptic Culture Conservation Collective‘, British Council, and ‘Heritage Repertoires for inclusive and sustainable development‘, British Academy), the born digital archival record (‘Digital Forensics in the Historical Humanities‘, European Commission), and decolonial futures for museum collections (‘Making African Connections: Decolonial Futures for Colonial Collections‘, Arts and Humanities Research Council).

Prior to joining Southampton, I held positions of Senior Lecturer in Digital History and Archives at the University of Sussex and Director of the Sussex Humanities Lab, Digital Curator at the British Library, and Postdoctoral Fellow with the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.

ORCID: 0000-0002-2682-6922

Fields of expertise: I work at the intersection of history, cultural heritage, and digital technologies. I am currently researching histories of knowledge organisation in twentieth century Britain.

Online Presence

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My ORCID

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Follow me on Twitter @j_w_baker

Check out contributions by and mentions of James Baker on www.software.ac.uk