Humanities & DH in the Classroom

On the left, top: a IIIF Special Interest Group that I co-founded at Rutgers in 2021.

On the left, bottom: the Scholarly Advisory Group meeting of PHAROS, The International Consortium of Photo Archives, at The Frick Collection, New York City.

On the right: a map visualization of letters sent to Galileo on the topic of astronomy, through Palladio. I have been building datasets and mapping all the letters discussing astronomical matters, that Galileo received before and after the 1633 Inquisition trial 

Dr. Agostini taught at the University of Notre Dame, Princeton University, Rutgers University and Rutgers Honors College, the Rutgers Digital Humanities Initiative and Lab, the New Jersey Digital Humanities Consortium, the New York City Digital Humanities Week, North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and Wake Forest University. 

Indiana University Bloomington

Faculty, History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine (2024–2026)

University of Notre Dame

Faculty Affiliate, Center for Italian Studies (2023–)

Postdoctoral Research Associate (2022–2023)

Rutgers University

Digital Humanities Graduate Research Specialist, Digital Humanities Initiative and Lab, New Brunswick Libraries: instructor, consultant, blog author, podcast founder, and coordinator of a special interest IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework) discussion group, 2020–2021

Part Time Lecturer, Department of Italian. Teaching Italian 101 online, Fall 2020

Teaching Assistant, Department of Italian, 2017 to 2019. Classes taught: Elementary Italian associated to Italian Food Culture, Elementary Italian online, Advanced Conversation through Cinema, Italian Composition and Stylistics, A Cultural Tour of Italy, and Intermediate Italian

Research Assistant, 2017 to present: Italian Food Culture, Introducing Italy City by City: Venice and Its Culture, Introduction to Italian Literature I and II, Walking in the Metropolis add-on language unit, and Studies in Italian Literature of the Fourteenth Century: Petrarca (graduate level)

Princeton University

Lecturer, Department of French and Italian, 2020–2021. Classes taught: Italian 102 (online) and three precepts of Contemporary Italian Civilization: The Literature of Gastronomy (in person and online)

Rutgers Honors College

Research projects coordinator in humanities and digital humanities, 2019-2020 

Graduate Mentor Fellow, organizing a field trip at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City, writing workshops, and individual consultations on projects, 2018–2019

North Carolina State University

Visiting Lecturer at the Department of History. Classes taught: two sections of History of Ancient and Medieval Science. I coordinated Honors theses, guided tours at the North Carolina Museum of Art exhibition “Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Leicester and the Creative Mind,” and digital humanities projects at the Hill Library Visualization Studio, 2015 

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Visiting Professor at the Department of Languages and Culture Studies and at the Department of History. Classes taught: Elementary, Intermediate, and Advanced Italian; Italian Culture; Greek History, 2014–2015

Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem

Visiting Professor, teaching Elementary and Intermediate Italian classes, 2013

Universal Design for Learning 

Here are thoughts, strategies, and activities following the Universal Design for Learning principles. These examples are in video editing, translating, and captioning

• Courses designed and taught by Caterina are marked by an asterisk (*)

• Digital Humanities

• The Knowledge of Data: Images, Texts, and Interpretations *

• History and History of Science

• History of Ancient and Medieval Science *

• Greek History *

• Ph.D. Seminars

• Digital Textual Scholarship *

• Data in the Humanities: Mining the Book of Nature *

• Languages

• Elementary, Intermediate, and Advanced Italian *

• Italian Composition and Stylistics *

• Literature and Culture

• Italian Culture

• A Cultural Tour of Italy

• Italian Food Culture *

• Contemporary Italian Civilization: The Literature of Gastronomy 

• Advanced Conversation through Cinema *

Take a peek at student feedback — shared with permission. Ask me what I'd like to achieve in the future: cagostin [at] iu [dot] edu 

Digital Humanities

What did you like most about the Palladio workshop?

"The walk-through of the different features while being able to consult the notes in the pdf file. I also thought the use of your own experience as contextualization for why and how to use Palladio was very helpful."

"PDF and instructor's screen-sharing while she used the tool - I need this level of how-to hand holding!"

"Really great framing of the tool. I appreciated Caterina's frankness about what the tool [Palladio] can do and what it can't do."

"At some point, not to give you more work, but I think it would be exciting to see a presentation of your own work and your use of tools/digital methods for it."

"This was really great. I also appreciated Caterina's attention to Zoom fatigue and pacing."

“The NYCDH Week workshop I had the pleasure of attending was the introductory course to mapping with Palladio – a mapping tool developed at Stanford which aims to analyze relationships across time… I’d never even heard of Palladio until I checked out the description for the workshop… our instructor Caterina Agostini was such an expert on the tool and really made the workshop an enjoyable experience.” (From a blog post by L. V. on my NYCDH workshop)

What is your biggest takeaway from the IIIF workshop?

"I now understand what IIIF is, how to use tools that leverage IIIF, and I know where to go to learn more about it."

"Specific use cases of IIIF. I learned why it is important rather than simply a tool."

"I was very interested by the research uses of the IIIF, as I'd mostly thought of it in terms of presentation."

"The patience and detail of the explanation [...] examples [...] interactivity."

"You are a great workshop leader! It was great! I loved it! Your work is amazing!"

"Caterina Agostini was a very engaging presenter and I liked the interactive elements of the workshop."

World Languages 

"This course has strengthened my knowledge of not only the language but also the culture of Italy. This course and the instructor has helped motivate me to continue learning and practicing Italian."

"Caterina engaged the class with as much authentic Italian info as she could with videos and audio lessons, and was very involved in making sure the students were understanding the material we were learning." 

"Agostini encouraged my growth by making the class so easy to follow. I have learned so much (...) I will definitely try to choose Professor Agostini again for Italian 2."

"She understands if you have any family emergency, she lets you make up assignments and will work with you on certain assignments if you need extra help. She is really nice and polite."

"Caterina worked with me with computer issues I was having when I was not able to hand in assignments on time and for that I am thankful (...) She made sure everyone understood what was going on and especially made clear where assignments were."

Humanities and Discussion Groups

"Awesome, super knowledgeable and engaging, genuinely connected with all of us."

"Lovely and engaging and thoughtful and attentive. She made this course great for me."

"She was great. If anyone takes this course, have her as your preceptor. Super sweet and it was so fun."

"Caterina Agostini is a wonderful preceptor. She is very good at helping students better-understand the readings and material. Please do yourself a favor and request her as your preceptor!"

"I loved precept. It was the highlight of my week. I found that we had interesting and stimulating discussions while also keeping it light to keep everyone engaged. I am definitely going to miss this precept."