Standards and Peculiarities: The Christopher G. Wagstaff Film Collection as a Potential DH Resource

Abstract

This article examines the Christopher G. Wagstaff Film Collection, a film and television resource recently opened for consultation at the University of Notre Dame, then considers some of its potential uses for the Italian Digital Humanities. It begins with highlights of the collection’s holdings that are of particular interest to scholars of Italian cinema, assessing some of the rare assets and outlining areas of strength such as the films of Fascism, Neorealism, and Italian popular cinema that are accessible for further investigation. Originally the personal collection of Christopher Wagstaff, a wide-ranging scholar of Italian cinema, this article demonstrates how the variety of materials, spanning across eras and types of Italian film and television production, reflects Wagstaff’s vital contribution to the study of Italian visual culture. It concludes with some suggested steps that might be taken to make digitized copies of the materials available to scholars interested in multimedia videographic criticism, transforming the collection into a valuable resource for the expanding field of the Digital Humanities and solidifying its position as an innovative center for the future of Italian Screen Studies.