Social Sciences/Humanities Summer Research | Department of Russian

Students are invited to apply to the Social Sciences/Humanities Summer Research Program, designed to expand research opportunities for students in the Social Sciences and Humanities fields for summer 2026. Students can apply to each opportunity by including a resume and cover letter addressed to the faculty member listed in the job description. The application deadline is Sunday, April 12.  

Humanities/Social Sciences Summer Research Program | Department of Russian 

Faculty Member: Professor Jose Vergara 

Job Description 

Paul Thomas Annotated: In the Margins is an open access digital scholarship project devoted to the filmography of Paul Thomas Anderson (www.ptannotated.com). The project involves annotating, scene by scene, screenshots from each of his ten narrative films to date (Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood, The Master, Inherent Vice, Phantom Thread, Licorice Pizza, One Battle After Another), with the aim of making them more accessible to audiences including scholars, students, filmmakers, fans, and casual viewers. Annotations address the films' many parts: mise-en-scène, dialogue, camerawork, character, intertextuality, intratextuality, narrative, and other analytical and aesthetic elements. Each image includes metadata that allows readers to sort and filter images according to visual and thematic terms. 

Joining the project this summer, Humanities Summer Research Program student collaborators will take part in the ongoing research, annotation, and metadata creation work and also produce supplementary content for the website, including designing and building data visualizations that use our data sets (screenshots and metadata) and complementary sources to represent such elements of PTA’s films as color palettes and collaborators with whom he repeatedly works, and writing narrative and visual digital essays that make use of the screenshots/metadata, as well as other materials (e.g., books and ephemera featured in the films), to analyze individual films or to draw connections across the filmography.

For this position, students will learn the requisite technical skills as part of the project development and implementation. They will practice and improve competencies and abilities rooted in film and visual arts but relevant to the humanities and, in particular, the digital humanities more generally.

Responsibilities may include collaborating with faculty, staff, and other project team members; capturing and processing screenshots for annotation and web publication; studying and annotating the films; researching the films and their contexts; working with image metadata and annotation data in various forms; and other duties as assigned. 

Skills or Training 

Applicants should possess excellent collaboration skills, strong written and oral communication skills, an ability to work independently and with a team, attention to detail, and a willingness to learn and troubleshoot new technologies. Selected students will receive training to cultivate any other technical skills necessary to complete their work during the summer. The project workflow and documentation has been established and will easily accommodate student summer researchers.

Class Year Eligible:  Current students in the Class of 2027, 2028, and 2029.

Majors: All humanities and social sciences majors/minors. Interest in or experience with film/media studies and/or literature(s) is preferred but not required.

Length: This position is full (minimum of 240 hours, over 10 weeks). The estimated start date is May 26, 2026. The estimated end date is July 31, 2026.

Internship Format: In-person/hybrid at Bryn Mawr College 

Additional Information: This position will be largely in person with regular project meetings, though some work may be completed remotely.

Funding Award: This opportunity includes a funding award of $5,000 (minus 15-20% taxes). 

Questions about this opportunity? Please contact Katie Krimmel at kkrimmel@brynmawr.edu and Professor Jose Vergara at jvergara@brynmawr.edu