Education:
Ph.D., Arizona State University, 2009
Contact:
Office: Cate 2, Room 336
Email: bill.endres@ou.edu
As a digital humanist, my principal research explores early medieval manuscripts. I study their mysteries and what can be learned by capturing and studying their complex materiality through digital technologies. Thus, my recent grants and book Digitizing Medieval Manuscripts: The St Chad Gospels, Materiality, Recoveries, and Representation in 2D & 3D.
To gain a quick sense of my book, brief responses to questions and extensions of key concepts are available in “Collecting Light: Q&A wit Bill Endres.”
My primary focus is the 8th-century St Chad Gospels, residing at Lichfield Cathedral, Lichfield, England. More generally, I work on manuscripts known as Insular, made in the British Isles from about 600-850 CE. I employ a number of advanced imaging techniques, including multispectral imaging (capturing light frequencies from ultraviolet to infrared), reflective tranformation imaging (RTI), and 3D capture. I have returned to Lichfield multiple times, digitizing historical images to assess aging and capturing the manuscript’s play of light and dry-point writing (etched with a stylus but no ink and meant to go unnoticed) using RTI. Recently, I worked with Kristi Wyatt, imaging specialist, to capture 3D data for selected pages of the St Chad Gospels, achieving an accuracy of .05 mm.
All of this research can be accessed and explored on my website: Manuscripts of Lichfield Cathedral. It includes Creative Common downloads for the St Chad Gospels and Lichfield Cathedral’s Wycliffe Bible. Also, you can download a beta version of a VR experience of the St Chad Gospels at https://github.com/OUETL/Access-Granted-XR-Manuscript-Viewer.
Finally, I continue to pursue interests in poetry and rhetoric, both part of my academic background.
Digital methods for discovery inform much of my teaching. I teach a range of courses, focusing on the rhetoric of technology, medieval manuscripts, digital composing, poetry, and classical rhetoric.
Digitizing Medieval Manuscripts: The St Chad Gospels, Materiality, Recoveries, and Representation in 2D & 3D. Leeds: Arc Humanities Press, 2019.
“Digitization as Schoarly Intervention and Interpretive Act: A Case for 3D Capture in Studying the Agency of materiality” in Manuscript Studies, 9:2 (2025): 185-221. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/mns.2024.a945373
Co-authored with Jenna Gorlewicz, “Haptics and Digital Codicology: Reimagining Tactile Experience in the Study of Manuscripts” in Approaches to Digital Codicology: Interdisciplinarity and Intersections, edited by Alberto Campagnolo and Elena Pierazzo. Turnhout: Brepols, Forthcoming 2025.
“A Manuscript Wanders into VR: Oh My!” in Insular Art at the Crossroads: Ninth International Insular Art Conference 2022, edited by Petts. OOxbow, Forthcoming 2025.
"Oh Lord, make haste to help me: Prayer and Imagery Atop Canon Table II in the Book of Kells” in An Insular Odyssey: Manuscript Culture in Early Christian Ireland and Beyond, edited by Rachel Moss, Felicity O'Mahony, and Jane Maxwell. Dublin: Four Court Press, 2017, p. 213-230.
"A Literacy of Building: Making in the Digital Humanities" in Making Humanities Matters, Debates in the Digital Humanities Series, ed. Jentery Sayer (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2018, p. 44-54).
"The St. Chad Gospels: Ligatures and the Division of Hands," Manuscripta 59.2 ( 2015): 158-86.
"Imaging Sacred Artifacts: Ethics and the Digitizing of Lichfield Cathedral's St Chad Gospels," Journal of Religion, Media & Digital Culture 3:3 (December, 2014) 39-73.
"More than Meets the Eye: Going 3D with an Early Medieval Manuscript," Proceedings of the Digital Humanities Congress 2012, ed. Clare Mills, Michael Pidd and Esther Ward, University of Sheffield, March 2014.
“Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI): Extending Digital Capture,” (Workshop), University of Leeds. Leeds, England.
“Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI): Exploring the Surface Details of Manuscripts” (Workshop), University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Scotland.
"Sublime Complexities and Extensive Possibilities: Strategies for Building an Academic Birtual Reality System," DH 2019, Utrecht, Netherlands, July 9-12, 2019.
"Beyond Gaming: Virtual Reality for the Public Humanities," Annual Meeting of the Consortium of Humanities Institutes and Centers, Dublin, Ireland, June 19-23, 2019.
"Teaching Manuscripts in a New Light: A Traveling Virtual Reality Workstation," International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 9-12, 2019.
"Escaping the Limits of the Screen: Experiencing & Studying Manuscripts in Virtual Reality," Medieval Academy Annual Meeting, University of Pennsylvania, March 7-9, 2019.
“The Shock & Awe of Illuminated Manuscripts: History, Meaning, Aesthetics, & Digital Excesses,” Friends’ Lecture Series, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, OK, 28 Nov. 2018.
“A New Invite from the Digital: Materiality, Manuscripts & Designing VR,” Invited speaker, University of Glasgow, 25 Oct. 2018.
$45,407, For the People Collection Grant, Library of Congress. “Continuing Comanche Culture: Culture as Making, Craft as Shared Story,” included funding to interview Comanche artists, generate video, and create two kiosk displays (2022-2024).
$11,105, Office of the Vice President for Research and Partnerships, University of Oklahoma. “Recovering Lost Content in Cultural Heritage: Building a Low-Cost Multispectral Imaging System,” included funding to build a multispectral imaging system and travel to England to recover palimpsest pages in the Hereford Gospels (2022-2023).
$10,000, Data Institute for Societal Challenges, University of Oklahoma. “Access Granted: Engaging with Fragile Illuminated Manuscripts,” included funding to capture 3D models of the 8th-century St Chad Gospels (Lichfield, England) and create a virtual reality and augmented reality experience for the manuscript: https://github.com/OUETL/Access-Granted-XR-Manuscript-Viewer.
$5000 Forum Grant Award, OU Humanities Forum, University of Oklahoma. Funding for building a traveling Virtual Reality Workstation for Experiencing and Studying Medieval Manuscripts (2018).
Junior Faculty Fellowship, University of Oklahoma. Summer support for book project: Digitizing Medieval Manuscripts: The St Chad Gospels, Materiality, Methods, and Representation in 2D and 3D and funding for travel to England to present at the International Medieval Congress (Leeds) and acquire further historical photographs of the St Chad Gospels (2017).
Grant for Advanced Imaging Technology (Reflectance Transformation Imaging), sponsored by the West Semitic Research Project, University of Southern California. Captured Lichfield Angel, medieval fresco, and selected pages of the St Chad Gospels (Lichfield Cathedral, Lichfield, England), early Christian stone carvings (Ireland), and medieval manuscripts and fragments (National Library of Wales), 2014.
