Alexandra is a Lecturer in History and Digital Humanities at the Digital Humanities Institute. Her background is in early modern European intellectual history, digital humanities, and cultural heritage studies, and her research is largely focused on Italy, Britain and the Atlantic world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Alexandra’s work is divided into two distinct areas: firstly, the history, circulation and translation of political philosophy and rights discourses in the Enlightenment; and secondly, the colonial history of early modern European collections, their role in the evolution of early modern knowledge and museums, and the repercussions this has for cultural heritage in a digital world. Underpinning both these strands is her use of diverse digital humanities tools and methods such as network analysis and text mining to augment her historical research, as well as a firm commitment to critical digital humanities approaches which seek to unveil the human processes and institutions shaping digital technologies.
Before joining the DHI, Alexandra was a Lecturer in Digital History and Culture at the University of Portsmouth, before which she was a Lecturer in Early Modern European History at King’s College London. She has previously held posts in Digital Humanities at University College London (UCL) and as a Postdoctoral Researcher on the Leverhulme-funded project Enlightenment Architectures: Sir Hans Sloane’s Catalogues of his Collections at The British Museum and UCL. Alexandra completed her PhD in History at the European University Institute (Florence, Italy).
Alexandra is a Senior Research Fellow on The Sloane Lab Project (AHRC, Towards a National Collection) and a Visiting Researcher at The British Museum. She also co-convenes the IHR digital history seminar series and hosts “New Work in Intellectual History” and “Digital Humanities” podcasts on the New Books Network.
Research Interests
Alexandra is currently working on two book projects. The first explores the nascent field of critical digital cultural heritage studies. The rich, ever-expanding ecosystem of digital cultural heritage has been heralded as a boon for the democratisation and accessibility of cultural heritage, and for innovative ways of preserving, presenting and interrogating the past in the digital age. Yet, the ubiquity of digital resources coupled with techno-positive faith in the richness and neutrality of digital cultural heritage often masks the processes, sociologies and ideological frameworks at its root. When examined closely, these processes can be seen to undermine the very virtues of democracy, representation and openness championed by heritage digitisation. Looking across GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums), this book explores why critical approaches to digital cultural heritage are paramount to ethical, equitable heritage futures and realising the democratising potential of the digital.
Alexandra is also finalising a monograph on the eighteenth-century Italian philosopher and criminologist Cesare Beccaria which uses co-citation and network analysis, bibliometrics, and text mining to demonstrate that his philosophical writings were rooted in a profoundly different intellectual heritage than historians have acknowledged. It reveals how his radical calls for absolute equality in the pursuit of happiness echoed throughout his intellectual and administrative work, in areas such as economics, education and public health, and contends that Beccaria’s contribution to the Enlightenment stretched far beyond the penal sphere. It concludes that he is a more substantial figure in the history of liberal thought than has been acknowledged and raises questions regarding the accepted contours, chronology and genealogy of the liberal canon. The book thus provides a revised reading of Beccaria’s philosophy, an intervention in the accepted narratives of the history of liberalism, and a strong methodological case for integrating digital approaches into intellectual history.