Here's my second attempt at the Itinera abstract, after some comments from Jen:
The humanities are ingrained in the history of our species, and they study people and objects to reveal what it means to be human. In our rapidly-digitizing age, history can be more easily preserved through the use of new technologies to avoid dissolving into itself. Through the database Itinera, we are able to preserve art history online by tracking culturally-motivated travel in an interactive forum, which is more accurate than preserving art history through traditional, textbook media. The database helps to make people more aware of and connected with our historic past, going beyond the confines of bookcovers and webpages, extending the history and making it easier to visualize. In a collaborative project like Itinera, multiple scholars can contribute to make new connections about old data through digitized configurations. My contribution to Itinera concerns research in tracking and documenting the Elgin marbles. These artifacts were ancient Greek sculptures, inscriptions and adnornments that decorated the Parthenon in antiquity, but migrated throughout Europe during the early 1800s. In my research, I will be able to deduce where and why these objects migrated, and ultimately, I will better understand the cultural reasons for moving these ancient art pieces in a 19th century context.