Dark Archives: Conferences on the Medieval Unread and Unreadable

The Dark Archives conferences, organized by the Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature, delve into the challenges of exploring vast, unexplored medieval archives. The inaugural event in September 2019 at the University of Oxford convened over 50 experts—including archivists, historians, and machine-learning researchers—to address issues such as mapping the extensive 'medieval graphosphere' and redefining medieval history in the digital age. Building on this foundation, the Dark Archives 20/20 conference continued the discourse, focusing on the inaccessibility and biases within medieval studies, and exploring innovative methods to make unread and unreadable texts accessible to scholars worldwide. These conferences also featured practical workshops on advanced techniques for uncovering and analyzing 'dark archives,' aiming to make the unread and unreadable accessible to scholars worldwide.

Project Website: https://aevum.space/darkarchives/20
Book: Dark Archives, Vol. 1. Voyages into the Medieval Unread & Unreadable, 2019-2021

Collaborators: Anthony John Lappin, Stephen Pink, Roger L. Martínez-Dávila