Pedagogy 2025
Abstract
In this presentation, Erika M. Bsumek, Professor of History at UT-Austin, will discuss her creation of ClioVis, a timeline, mind-mapping, and network visualization tool designed to enhance project-based learning and interdisciplinary collaboration. She will highlight its use in Building America: Engineering Society and Culture, an interdisciplinary survey course where students from engineering, art, history, and political science work together to study the Brooklyn Bridge as both an engineering marvel and a cultural, political, and social symbol. Through this assignment, students learn to engage in open dialogue across disciplines, respect differing methodologies, and practice setting and achieving shared goals. By examining the ethical conflicts that have shaped the history of technological innovation, students develop a deeper appreciation for the professional standards and societal responsibilities inherent in their respective fields. ClioVis serves as an example of how digital tools can bridge disciplinary divides and foster critical engagement with historical and contemporary issues. Following this, Kristina Neumann, Associate Professor of Roman and Digital History at the University of Houston, will highlight three additional undergraduate applications of ClioVis: collaborative timeline creation in a survey course, conceptual mapping in an upper-level history class, and project prototyping for research initiatives. Students built detailed timelines of ancient civilizations to enhance exam preparation, mapped contextual events, biographies, and sources to better analyze Roman history, and re-contextualized ancient Syrian coins for public history projects. In each case, ClioVis strengthened students’ critical writing and argumentation skills, while empowering them to become active interpreters of historical knowledge through digital media.
Dr. Erika Bsumek holds the Ellen Clark Temple Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research explores Native American history, environmental studies, the built environment, and the U.S. West. She authored Indian-made: Navajo Culture in the Marketplace, 1848–1960 (2008) and The Foundations of Glen Canyon Dam: Infrastructures of Dispossession on the Colorado Plateau (2023). She is also the creator of ClioVis, a digital timeline and network mapping platform that has helped over 35,000 students build time-aligned research and class project maps.
Kristina Neumann is an Associate Professor of Roman and Digital History in the Department of History at the University of Houston. Her research focuses on the political, economic, and cultural interactions of the Roman world, with a particular emphasis on the eastern provinces. She integrates digital tools into historical research and teaching, exploring how technology can make ancient history more accessible to students and public audiences. Dr. Neumann has led several digital humanities initiatives, including projects that reframe ancient artifacts for modern interpretation. She is committed to fostering innovative, interdisciplinary approaches to the study and communication of the ancient past.
8:30 pm - 10:00 pm
Friday 21st November, 2025