We invite proposals for the third annual Immersive Technologies and Cultural Heritage (ITCH) Symposium, jointly organized by the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences; the Ahmanson Lab of the Sidney Harman Academy for Polymathic Study in the USC Libraries; and the UCLA XR Initiative. The ITCH symposium will take place as a live, in-person event on Friday, November 14, at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

We seek innovative projects rooted in the humanities or humanistic social sciences that mobilize immersive technologies (including but not limited to augmented reality, mixed reality, virtual reality, photogrammetry, or 3D modeling) to enable close engagement with cultural heritage materials, or to open new possibilities for research, teaching, and learning with cultural heritage materials.

We welcome work at any stage of development, with preference for projects that have at least completed a proof-of-concept, working prototype, or other early-stage exploratory development. We particularly seek projects working at the intersection of digital technologies and the liberal arts. In the interest of building a regional scholarly community, we will give priority to proposals from greater Southern California.

Participants will:

Pre-circulate materials related to their current project two weeks prior to the symposium (e.g., a draft article, website, VR/AR experience, 3D model).
Give a 10-15-minute presentation summarizing their project’s context, goals, and implications for humanities scholarship at the symposium.
Offer comments, feedback, and questions on other participants’ projects.
Participate in a concluding roundtable discussion of the promise and perils of immersive technologies for humanities research, teaching, and learning.

Workshop discussions will foreground humanities questions, interdisciplinary elements, and user experience in project development.

To apply, send a single PDF document containing the project or presentation title; the name, title, and affiliation of each presenter; a 300-word abstract describing the project; any relevant URLs; and a one-page CV for each presenter to digitalhumanities@usc.edu by end-of-day on Monday, October 13, 2025.

ITCH Organizers

Francesca Albrezzi, Digital Research Specialist and Manager of the GIS and Visualization Research Technology Group, Office of Advanced Research Computing, UCLA falbrezzi@ucla.edu

Mats Borges, Assistant Director, USC Ahmanson Lab, mdborges@usc.edu

Amy Braden, Director of Programs, USC–Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute

abraden@usc.edu

Lauren Dodds, Project Specialist, USC–Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute ldodds@usc.edu

Curtis Fletcher, Director, USC Ahmanson Lab, cfletche@usc.edu

Sean Fraga, Assistant Professor (Teaching) of Environmental Studies and History, USC; project director, Booksnake, sfraga@usc.edu

Joy Guey, Emerging Technologies Advocate and Bridge Innovation Studio Director, Social Sciences Center for Education, Research, and Technology, UCLA, jguey@ucla.edu

Curtis Fletcher, Ph.D.
Director of the Ahmanson Lab
Sidney Harman Academy for Polymathic Study
USC Libraries

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