Digital humanities sounds niche, until you realize it can mean a searchable archive of U.S. amendment proposals, Irish folklore, or pigment science in ancient art. Today I’m talking with David Flood from Harvard’s DARTH team about an unglamorous problem: What happens when the grant ends but the website can’t. His answer, static sites, client-side search, and sneaky Python. Let’s dive in.

Episode sponsors

Sentry Error Monitoring, Code talkpython26
Command Book
Talk Python Courses

Links from the show

Guest
David Flood: davidaflood.com

DARTH: digitalhumanities.fas.harvard.edu
Amendments Project: digitalhumanities.fas.harvard.edu
Fionn Folklore Database: fionnfolklore.org
Mapping Color in History: iiif.harvard.edu
Apatosaurus: apatosaurus.io
Criticus: github.com
github.com/palewire/django-bakery: github.com
sigsim.acm.org/conf/pads/2026/blog/artifact-evaluation: sigsim.acm.org
Hugo: gohugo.io
Water Stories: waterstories.fas.harvard.edu
Tsumeb Mine Notebook: tmn.fas.harvard.edu
Dharma and Punya: dharmapunya2019.org
Pagefind library: pagefind.app
django_webassembly: github.com
Astro Static Site Generator: astro.build
PageFind Python Lib: pypi.org
Frozen-Flask: frozen-flask.readthedocs.io

Watch this episode on YouTube: youtube.com
Episode #538 deep-dive: talkpython.fm/538
Episode transcripts: talkpython.fm

Theme Song: Developer Rap
🥁 Served in a Flask 🎸: talkpython.fm/flasksong

---== Don't be a stranger ==---
YouTube: youtube.com/@talkpython

Bluesky: @talkpython.fm
Mastodon: @talkpython@fosstodon.org
X.com: @talkpython

Michael on Bluesky: @mkennedy.codes
Michael on Mastodon: @mkennedy@fosstodon.org
Michael on X.com: @mkennedy