Dr Alexandra Ortolja-Baird

School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities

Lecturer in History and Digital Humanities

Profile

I am a Lecturer in History and Digital Humanities at the Digital Humanities Institute. My background is in early modern European intellectual history, digital humanities, and cultural heritage studies, and my research is largely focused on Italy, Britain and the Atlantic world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. My work is divided into two distinct areas: firstly, the history, circulation and translation of political philosophy and rights discourses in the Enlightenment; and secondly, the colonial history of early modern European collections, their role in the evolution of early modern knowledge and museums, and the repercussions this has for cultural heritage in a digital world. Underpinning both these strands is my use of diverse digital humanities tools and methods such as network analysis and text mining to augment my historical research, as well as my firm commitment to critical digital humanities approaches which seek to unveil the human processes and institutions shaping digital technologies.

Qualifications

Before joining the DHI, I was a Lecturer in Digital History and Culture at the University of Portsmouth, before which I was a Lecturer in Early Modern European History at King’s College London. I have previously held posts in Digital Humanities at University College London (UCL) and as a Postdoctoral Researcher on the Leverhulme-funded project Enlightenment Architectures: Sir Hans Sloane’s Catalogues of his Collections at The British Museum and UCL. I completed my PhD in History at the European University Institute (Florence, Italy).

I am a Senior Research Fellow on The Sloane Lab Project (AHRC, Towards a National Collection) and a Visiting Researcher at The British Museum. I also co-convene the IHR digital history seminar series and host “New Work in Intellectual History” and “Digital Humanities” podcasts on the New Books Network.

Research interests

I am currently working on two book projects. The first explores the nascent field of critical digital cultural heritage studies. The rich, ever-expanding ecosystem of digital cultural heritage has been heralded as a boon for the democratisation and accessibility of cultural heritage, and for innovative ways of preserving, presenting and interrogating the past in the digital age. Yet, the ubiquity of digital resources coupled with techno-positive faith in the richness and neutrality of digital cultural heritage often masks the processes, sociologies and ideological frameworks at its root. When examined closely, these processes can be seen to undermine the very virtues of democracy, representation and openness championed by heritage digitisation. Looking across GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums), this book explores why critical approaches to digital cultural heritage are paramount to ethical, equitable heritage futures and realising the democratising potential of the digital.

I am also finalising a monograph on the eighteenth-century Italian philosopher and criminologist Cesare Beccaria which uses co-citation and network analysis, bibliometrics, and text mining to demonstrate that his philosophical writings were rooted in a profoundly different intellectual heritage than historians have acknowledged. It reveals how his radical calls for absolute equality in the pursuit of happiness echoed throughout his intellectual and administrative work, in areas such as economics, education and public health, and contends that Beccaria’s contribution to the Enlightenment stretched far beyond the penal sphere. It concludes that he is a more substantial figure in the history of liberal thought than has been acknowledged and raises questions regarding the accepted contours, chronology and genealogy of the liberal canon. The book thus provides a revised reading of Beccaria’s philosophy, an intervention in the accepted narratives of the history of liberalism, and a strong methodological case for integrating digital approaches into intellectual history.

Teaching interests

My main teaching interests are:

  • Digital humanities
  • Digital cultures and cultural data 
  • Digital cultural heritage and critical digital cultural heritage
  • Early modern European history
  • History of museums and collecting
  • Intellectual history and the history of political thought
  • Digital history
Publications

“Poverty, Rights and the Social Contract in Enlightenment Habsburg Lombardy” in Niall O’Flaherty and Robin Mills eds., Ideas of Poverty in the Age of Enlightenment. Manchester University Press (2024).

‘“Useful” Translations in the Milanese Enlightenment” in James Raven ed., Global Exchanges of Knowledge in the Long Eighteenth Century: Ideas and Materialities c. 1650–1850. Boydell and Brewer (2024).

“Sir Hans Sloane’s Collection of Books and Manuscripts: An Enlightenment Library?” in Ann-Marie Hansen and Arthur der Weduwen eds., Publishers, Censors and Collectors in the European Book Trade, 1650–1750. Brill: Library of the Written Word Series (2024).

“De-neutralizing digital heritage infrastructures? Critical considerations on digital engagements with the past in the context of Europe” in Rodney Harrison, Nélia Dias, and Kristian Kristiansen eds., Critical Heritage Studies and the Futures of Europe. UCL Press (2023).

On Making in the Digital Humanities. UCL Press (2023).

“The Translation, Adaptation and Mediation of Cameralist Texts in Habsburg Lombardy” in Adriana Luna-Fabritius et al. eds., Reform and Improvement: Political Reason and the Language of Change in Early Modern Europe. Routledge (2022).

“Chaos naturae et artis: Imitation, Innovation and Improvisation in Sir Hans Sloane’s library. Part Two”. Library and Information History (2021).

“Encoding the haunting of an object catalogue: on the potential of digital technologies to perpetuate or subvert the silence and bias of the early-modern archive”. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities (2021).

“Named Entity Recognition for early-modern textual sources: a review of capabilities and challenges with strategies for the future”. Journal of Documentation (2021).

“Chaos naturae et artis: Imitation, Innovation and Improvisation in Sir Hans Sloane’s library. Part One”. Library and Information History (2020).

“Cesare Beccaria: Functionary, Lecturer, Cameralist? Interpreting Cameralism in Habsburg Lombardy” in Nicholas B. Miller and Ere Nokkala eds., Cameralism and the Enlightenment: Happiness, Governance and Reform in Transnational Perspective. Routledge (2019).

“Digital Humanities in the Memory Institution: the challenges of encoding Sir Hans Sloane’s catalogues of his collections”. Open Library of the Humanities (2019).