#538: Python in Digital Humanities

Digital humanities sounds niche, until you realize it can mean a searchable archive of U.S. amendment proposals, Irish folklore, or pigment science in ancient art. Today I’m talking with David Flood from Harvard’s DARTH team about an unglamorous problem: What happens when the grant ends but the website can’t. His answer, static sites, client-side search, and sneaky Python. Let’s dive in.

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Links from the show Guest

David Flood: davidaflood.com

DARTH: digitalhumanities.fas.harvard.edu

Amendments Project: digitalhumanities.fas.harvard.edu

Fionn Folklore Database: fionnfolklore.org

Mapping Color in History: iiif.harvard.edu

Apatosaurus: apatosaurus.io

Criticus: github.com

github.com/palewire/django-bakery: github.com

sigsim.acm.org/conf/pads/2026/blog/artifact-evaluation: sigsim.acm.org

Hugo: gohugo.io

Water Stories: waterstories.fas.harvard.edu

Tsumeb Mine Notebook: tmn.fas.harvard.edu

Dharma and Punya: dharmapunya2019.org

Pagefind library: pagefind.app

django_webassembly: github.com

Astro Static Site Generator: astro.build

PageFind Python Lib: pypi.org

Frozen-Flask: frozen-flask.readthedocs.io

Watch this episode on YouTube: youtube.com

Episode #538 deep-dive: talkpython.fm/538

Episode transcripts: talkpython.fm

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