Digital Humanities 2007
June 2-8, 2007

A variety of restaurants of good quality are within walking distance of the campus. A short bus or cab ride brings into range some other very good choices. Favorites include:

• Bacaro Italian wine bar, expensive by local standards, but excellent food, wine, and service. Wines by the glass half-price on Sunday. Downtown Champaign.
• Cafe Luna: European menu, very good food and service; large groups are a problem here. Walking distance from campus.
• Timpone's: Italian, very good, reasonably priced. Walking distance from campus.
• Siam Terrace: Excellent and reasonably priced Thai food in an unassuming atmosphere. Downtown Urbana.
• Milo's Restaurant: Family-style American restaurant, great food and service, reasonably priced. Downtown Urbana.
• Basmati Restaurant: Very good Indian food, very nice people. Walking distance from campus.

Springfield Excursion: 8:30 AM - 4 pm, June 4th

$50 including lunch: $55 after May 14th. This excursion will include both of the following:

Dana-Thomas House: In 1902, Susan Lawrence Dana, the forward-thinking socialite daughter of a Springfield industrialist, commissioned architect Frank Lloyd Wright to design a new residence. Trusting in Wrights genius, Dana gave him complete authority and spared no expense. Wright went all out in what's considered his first full expression of the Prairie style. When it was finished in 1904, the $60,000 project was the largest residence Wright had built: 35 rooms on three main levels, encompassing 12,000-square-feet of living space. Operated by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, the house contains the largest collection of Wright furniture and art-glass windows. George Niedecken painted many murals for Wright, but the Dana-Thomas House has the only intact Niedecken original. Dana loved to entertain, and her house was designed with that in mind. The grand entrance is theatrical; one enters the house as if walking onto a stage. The three floors contain 16 varying levels. In the early 1980s, in order to preserve this architectural gem, the state of Illinois acquire the residence; the Dana-Thomas House Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes the house and programs special events, was formed the following year.

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum: "Combining scholarship and showmanship, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in downtown Springfield, Illinois communicates the amazing life and times of Abraham Lincoln in unforgettable ways."

Allerton Excursion: 12:30 pm - 6 pm, June 7th

$50 including box lunch and an optional guided tour of the sculpture and grounds; $55 after May 14th.

Allerton Park: Robert Henry Allerton donated his private estate,"The Farms" to the University of Illinois in 1946. The property which is located just outside of Monticello, Illinois consists of 1,500 acres of formal gardens, nature areas, and his manor house. In keeping with Robert Allerton's orginal concept, the estate is used as a conservation area devoted to education, research, and recreation. Today, more than 100,000 people - including researchers, teachers, and students as well as the general public - visit the park or attend conferences at the Conference Center each year.

The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign is located about 140 miles south of Chicago, in central Illinois. The University is served by Willard Airport (CMI) in Savoy, IL, about 10 minutes from the University campus. Amtrak has daily train service from Chicago. The city bus system that serves both Champaign and Urbana is excellent. The University web site provides more detailed directions to campus. Champaign has a population of 67,518 and Urbana's is 36,395. The University straddles the border between the two towns. In summer months the average high temperature is 85 degrees and low temperature is 65 degrees. Between April and July there is an average of 5 to 7 thunderstorms per month and our annual rainfall is 39.74 inches. During June, July and August there is an average of six to seven days per month when the temperature is above 90 degrees. Historically, July is the warmest month. The Champaign County Visitor's Guide has more information about the area.

Since its founding in 1867, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has earned a reputation as a world-class leader in research, teaching, and public engagement. It is one of the country's 37 original public land-grant institutions created within 10 years of the signing of the Morrill Act by Abraham Lincoln in 1862. It has 272 major buildings located on 1,458 acres. The University has 1,986 permanent faculty, 29,294 undergraduate students, and 11,066 graduate students, from all 50 states and 100 nations.

The Library at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign is the largest public university collection in the world, and the one of the world's premier research libraries. Among the Library's most notable collections are its holdings in Slavic and Eastern European history, literature, and science; music, especially Renaissance music; 17th- and 18th-century American and British literature; American, British and Irish history, including a distinguished collection of Lincolniana; French, German, and Italian literature, including world-famous Proust, Rilke, Dante, and Tasso collections; and historic and modern maps. The Library is also world-famous for its outstanding collection of emblem books and incunabula, and for archival collections, including personal papers of John Milton, Marcel Proust, H.G. Wells, Carl Sandburg, and Avery Brundage of the international Olympic movement. The Library holdings include more than ten million volumes.

Since 1969, the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts has served as one of the nation's premier educational and professional performing arts complexes. Each season, Krannert Center features over 300 performances and productions. Encompassing two city blocks, the Center is a stunning architectural achievement designed by University of Illinois alumnus Max Abramovitz. The Krannert Center has four main venues, and is most famous for its acoustically superior concert hall, the Foellinger Great Hall.

The Krannert Art Museum has the second-largest permanent collection of art in Illinois. Acknowledged strengths of the collection include: The Trees Collection of European and American Painting, Moore Collection of European and American Decorative Arts, The Olsen Collection of pre-Columbian Art, and examples of 20th Century Art collected during the Contemporary Arts Festivals (1948-1974). Additionally, focal points of the collection include a small but exquisite collection of Asian art, a growing collection of African art, and a large and important collection of works on paper, particularly a group of prints by WPA-artists and photographs by Edward Weston and others.

With approximately 46,000 artifacts in its collections, The Spurlock Museum's permanent galleries celebrate the diversity of cultures through time and across the globe, highlighting the Ancient Mediterranean, Africa, Asia, Oceania, Europe, and the Americas.