Recent News
Unearthing the history of Bermuda’s old capital
Tue, 23 May 2023
Each spring, Rochester undergraduates conduct archaeological fieldwork, unearthing and preserving Bermuda’s rich history.
Continue ReadingThe ethics of dark tourism
Thu, 19 Jan 2023
Julia Granato crisscrossed Europe to study human bone collection and display sites. Now she’s pondering what it means to display and visit human remains.
Continue ReadingDigital history project will create virtual visits to an African slave fort
Wed, 29 Sep 2021
Funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, “Black Past Lives Matter: Digital Kormantin” builds on history professor Michael Jarvis’s work as part of the Ghana summer field school.
Continue ReadingGhana field school immerses students in ancient forts—and the legacies of slavery
Tue, 03 Dec 2019
For the last three summers, Rochester undergraduates have worked to analyze and preserve the ancient forts along the coast of Ghana, while exploring the historical and cultural context of the structures they study.
Continue ReadingHow do you bring a castle home with you?
Tue, 03 Dec 2019
How do you convey a 91,000-square-foot castle with more than 160 rooms on the Ghana coast, back to Rochester, so at any time you could take a virtual tour as if you were really there? Or study the castle’s structure brick by brick?
Continue ReadingStudents thrive at the intersections of engineering, computer science, and humanities
Wed, 09 Oct 2019
Seniors Melissa Wen, Nathan Nickerson, and Jarrod Young are this year's winners of the Wells Award, given each year to high-achieving students in the Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences who also excel in the humanities.
Continue ReadingFate of historic forts rests in connecting them to the communities around them
Fri, 06 Jul 2018
The most help I can do for the preservation and heritage of Elmina castle, Fort Amsterdam, and the other slave castles along of the coast of Ghana is to teach others how they can study and care for the castle tomorrow.
Continue ReadingLike a fish out of water (with a side of banku)
Mon, 02 Jul 2018
The goal of this entry isn’t to try and definitively answer these questions, but rather to discuss how I got my feet planted. The first step was to acknowledge that I am not here to be comfortable.
Continue ReadingMemorable Ghana
Thu, 28 Jun 2018
“As a student in the digital media studies department, it amazed me to see how the different tools and methods of studying the structures added to our understanding of how the forts were built and how they might have changed over time.”
Continue ReadingSurveying the castle is ‘an honorable mission’
Mon, 25 Jun 2018
"Since arriving at Elmina, my heart has been flooded with sorrowful thoughts that fly back to the colonial period, when elegant pieces of architecture such as Elmina Castle were built to house pillaged materials such as gold and ivory, as well as human beings."
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