The exhibit by Charlotte Capuano and Erin Pinto led one of the featured women's families to share previously unseen photos and documents with the museum for digitization.
Capuano and Pinto produced the exhibit during the 2024 spring semester in an internship course taught by Alda Benjamen, assistant professor of history, with funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development in partnership with the Antiquities Coalition. After completing the course, they continued to develop their project through the College of Arts and Sciences Dean's Summer Fellowship program.
The students used ArcGIS Story Maps, an interactive multimedia application for building digital stories and presentations, to create their virtual exhibit, with assistance from UD Roesch Library staff. They focused on the lives of four women who were influential figures in their Chaldean and Church of the East Christian communities, as well as nationally and regionally: Maria Therese Asmar, Surma Khanum, Maryam Nerma and Lillie Taimoorzay.
"I felt so out of my depth," said Pinto, a senior history and French major from Long Hill, New Jersey. "I haven't even finished half of my history degree -- how is this the work I'm doing? I felt extremely privileged."
The exhibit serves as a way for Iraq's displaced Indigenous groups to connect with their cultural community. Assyrians have lost access to many of their culturally significant places and artifacts because of violence in their homeland. The women featured in the exhibit were writers, activists and leaders who illustrated the struggles and achievements of Middle Eastern women.
Taimoorazy, a preservationist and academic known as the "mother of Assyrian folk dance," is highlighted in the museum's physical display with a recreation of a traditional folk dancing costume she would have worn, accompanied by music she wrote.
Details about how she earned the title of folkloric culture queen are included in the digital exhibit through never-before-seen documents obtained by Capuano and Pinto.
"We were able to talk with her family, about her experience and what they know about their grandmother," Pinto said. "They were able to give us access to writings and old photos that had never been shared outside of the family."
The students established a relationship with the Taimoorazy family through Benjamen, who continued to mentor them during the summer. The Taimoorazys were willing to have documents and photos from her family's archive properly preserved and digitized after seeing the research the students had done.
"We were very open with them and let them know they would be setting the parameters -- they could give us as much or as little as they wanted," said Capuano, a history and women's and gender studies major from Detroit. "We were just glad they were willing to talk."
Capuano and Pinto did the bulk of their research and curating during the three-credit virtual internship course, Preservation and Digitization of Iraqi Cultural Heritage. Students in the course explored the historical context and challenges faced by Iraq's minority communities, while gaining insights into the principles of cultural heritage preservation and digitization.
The course was developed under a two-year, $1 million USAID grant, which continues through May 2025. It is an extension of a previous $1 million USAID award for Benjamen's cultural preservation project. The grant supports the development of educational programming for the minority communities and also includes funding for UD student interns to participate in the ongoing digitization efforts.
After presenting their digital exhibit in April at the Brother Joseph W. Stander Symposium, an annual University event to showcase academic and artistic projects, Capuano and Pinto refined their project based on feedback from history department faculty.
The students were able to extend their work on the project through the Dean's Summer Fellowship program, which allows undergraduate students to conduct summer research in any academic discipline under the guidance of a faculty mentor with funding from the College Dean's Fund for Excellence.
"The history faculty has been so supportive of us, we have gotten a lot of feedback from professors across the department," Capuano said. "It's nice having a small department where the students and faculty all know each other. We had other students show up for us and they maintained that support well into the summer."
Working remotely with guidance from Benjamen, the students finalized the exhibit for its opening in July. The Dean's Summer Fellowship allowed them additional time to edit one another's work, make revisions and modify the project so the museum could translate their writing into three languages and format it for display.
The students were unable to attend the exhibit opening in Erbil, Iraq. However, they saw their work recognized in news reports with photos of the event.
"It was really exciting," Capuano said. "We worked so hard on this project and to see international recognition of it was unbelievable."
Benjamen, who has worked in preserving cultural heritage for more than a decade, emphasizes the importance of mentored experiential learning.
"The best experiences that I've had as a student was through hands-on learning and taking what I've learned from books, readings, lectures and seeing how that applies. I think it's very important," Benjamen said.
"A strong aspect of our program is the connection that we have personally and as academics," she continued. "I've been doing research in Iraq professionally since 2007. For me to bring my students into these connections that I've built over a decade of work and research is very fulfilling."
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