OpenGulf (opengulf.github.io) is a transdisciplinary, multi-institutional research group for a community of scholars working on digital historical projects related to the Gulf region. Our presentation will introduce three research projects underway working with large source bases about the Gulf from different time periods: handwritten material from the British colonial residency in Bushire held in the India Office Records, the large historical reference work known as Lorimer's Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Central Arabia and Oman and Abu Dhabi phone directories (1970-2005). We argue that for parts of the world such as the Gulf countries and for fields such as Gulf Studies, digital historical research is by no means an obvious endeavor. There are many complexities in designing, launching and sustaining digital historical research, not the least of which is identifying, digitizing and assembling data from various archives. OpenGulf aims to operate at multiple scales to build the groundwork for digital work in Gulf Studies that reexamines sources--some well-known, others totally ignored--for the region, privileging diverse teams of faculty, early career researchers and student researchers, developing new skills, opening new research horizons and centering new voices.

Speakers
Nora Barakat, Assistant Professor of History, Stanford University
Suphan Kirmizialtin, Visiting Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern History, NYUAD
David Joseph Wrisley, Associate Professor of Digital Humanities, NYUAD

Moderated by
Nathalie Peutz, Associate Professor of Arab Crossroads Studies, NYUAD