Signs of our Times

Client: Katherine Powlesland, Digital Levi Project <klp47@cam.ac.uk>

In times of political turmoil, media commentary is transient, with more profound understanding coming only decades later. In future years, we will find that someone really knew what was happening today, in the same way Primo Levi, for example, captured the true tragedies of the Second World War in his masterpiece If This is a Man. Levi invites us to vividly participate in his text so that the same thing is never allowed to happen again. What future tragedies might be avoided if we could bring scholarly analysis of important works like these into dialogue with popular debate, positions, or commentary as expressed on digital platforms and social media? Your goal is to build a prototype for an innovative digital edition of If This is a Man, that inspires thoughtful reflection through immersion and elegance far beyond the trivial claims made for the Metaverse.