AI in the Archives: A Brown Bag (see attached flyer)

Sharing the Undergraduate Summer Research of Kaylee Atkocius (’28)

The transcription of Richard Furman’s copy of Hugh Blair’s “Lectures on Rhetoric” using Transkribus^TM

Furman Hall 117 – Furman Humanities Center Seminar Room

Friday, September 19^th, 12:30

You are encouraged to bring lunch and a laptop!

Thanks to the Furman Humanities Center, Furman University Archives & Special Collections, Furman Undergraduate Research, and COM Studies.

Summer undergraduate research had Kaylee Atkocius transcribing the oldest manuscript related to our university’s history. Richard Furman, namesake of the college, had a student notebook from the University of Edinburgh’s Hugh Blair—specifically his “Lectures on Rhetoric.” Atkocius used the transcription software Transkribus to detect the basic contents of the roughly 250 manuscript pages, and then painstakingly verified its accuracy word-for-word. Come hear about that process and what it yielded. This includes understanding the history of rhetoric, the biography of Richard Furman, and the values of the southern liberal arts tradition that teaches modes of public speaking and civic discourse for two centuries and up to today (when we may need it most).