Mara R. Wade

Mara R. Wade is professor emerita at the University of Illinois, who is well-known for her work on the freely accessible digital database, Emblematica Online. She has been with the University for over 30 years researching emblems, early modern German literature and art, and gender studies. In addition to classes related to her research, she taught Jewish studies and cinema studies.

Aside from her research, she continues as a passionate mentor to undergraduate and graduate students and an avid promoter of their research. Tthe various grants she received have supported graduate student researchers, while the “Emblem Scholars” provided research opportunities for undergraduates.

The Digital Humanities and Emblematica Online

During her time at the University, Professor Wade’s research has largely focused on the digital humanities. The field of digital humanities combines the use of digital tools and technologies like visual representations and digital media with the humanities like history, literature, and cultural studies. A couple of purposes of digital humanities are to enhance and broaden the ways in which scholars conduct research and share their findings with the general public.

Wade has utilized the digital humanities to elevate her work on European emblems during the Renaissance. Emblems were a popular part of European culture from 1500 to 1800. They combine text and images with features that represent different concepts, which requires the reader to elicit their meanings. A modern example of an image representing something else could be an owl representing wisdom or a blindfolded female figure depicting blind Justice. This symbol was then paired with a short text to convey a much larger concept.

Many emblems were compiled into emblem books and throughout time, circulated widely. Now, they are often in rare and fragile condition. For over two decades, Wade has been the principal investigator of Emblematica Online, a website devoted to the digitization of emblem books with a database to search easily for a variety of emblems. She created the initial idea of the project in 2001 and it was further developed in 2003. Key external funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and other sources supported the project. Key collaborators from the University of Illinois are Timothy W. Cole and Myung-Ja Han (both from the University Library).

Housed at the University of Illinois, the site first digitized emblems from books in the collections of the University Library and the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel. The project now also includes fully indexed emblem books from Glasgow University, Utrecht University, and the Newberry Library, Chicago. Fully digitized emblem books from the Getty Research Library and Duke University are included in the total of 1,407 rare, and in some cases unique, emblem books. Emblems and emblem books from collections worldwide are now searchable and browsable from a single database in Emblematica Online.

The general public and scholars can browse the site to view more than 33,000 individually indexed emblems in various languages from the 17th to the 19th century. In 2023 Emblematica Online received the Digital Innovation Award from the Renaissance Society of America.

Although other universities have digitized emblems, Emblematica Online  remains the only project that has integrated major collections of emblems from multiple institutions into a digital repository that is openly accessible and academically supported. The project exemplifies how the digital humanities can enhance numerous fields of study to foster research and pedagogy, making history easily accessible.