Within the margins of medieval manuscripts, a quiet revolution is underway. At NYU Abu Dhabi, Professor of Digital Humanities, David Wrisley, is bridging the distant past with the tools of the present, revealing hidden stories long trapped in ancient pages.
Growing up in a family of engineers, Wrisley’s path to medieval studies was anything but typical. At the University of Chicago, he discovered a passion for literature and history that would ultimately transform how we understand historical documents. He went on to pursue his MA and PhD at Princeton University, where he began to explore medieval culture deeply.
"I started taking classes outside of science and math,” he recalls. “From there, it was a deep dive into understanding medieval culture."
That dive led him across disciplines and continents. His decision to study Arabic in his late twenties was a turning point, enriching his understanding of cultural contexts far beyond the European texts he initially focused on. In 2002, his academic journey brought him to the Arab world, originally to Lebanon and then to NYUAD, where he has taught since 2016.
At the heart of Wrisley’s work is a deep love for historical manuscripts and a passion to read them more clearly. Using advanced digital methods, he and his team explore medieval documents in ways that go far beyond simple digitization. By training computer models to recognize handwriting, language shifts, and stylistic quirks, they uncover layers of meaning invisible to the naked eye.
"We’re not just scanning manuscripts and hoping for the best," he says. "We’re building systems that can read them the way a trained scholar would, sometimes even better."
In one standout project, David and his collaborators analyzed medieval documents from Sicily. While the texts appeared similar on the surface, computational analysis revealed subtle but important differences. Earlier scholars had grouped five manuscripts together because their illuminations looked alike. But computational analysis showed that only three were truly connected, while two bore distinct spelling habits and letter forms that set them apart – distinctions that could shift how we understand historical relationships, trade, and politics in the region.
For scholars, the implications are profound. Suddenly, previously illegible or inaccessible texts are being transcribed. Connections between scattered manuscripts are becoming clearer. And long-held assumptions are being revisited with fresh evidence.
We can now access documents we never had transcriptions for. We can see patterns the human eye can’t detect, not because we’re careless, but because we’re limited by cognitive capacity.
But his impact goes well beyond the lab. Wrisley has been a key figure in expanding digital humanities across the Middle East. He helped launch the first Digital Humanities Institute in Beirut in 2015, creating a hub for regional collaboration and innovation. At NYUAD, he helped design a new minor in digital arts and humanities, giving students the tools to bridge cultural history and digital futures.
For Wrisley, this field is about more than just new tools, it's about new ways of thinking.
“Technology can open doors,” he says. “But it requires thoughtful, ethical approaches to truly unlock its potential.”
As the boundaries between disciplines continue to blur, David’s work sits at a compelling intersection: history and innovation, language and code, human insight and machine assistance. Each manuscript studied is not just a relic of the past, but a conversation with it – one that’s finally being heard.
His journey, from a budding engineer to a pioneer in digital humanities, is a testament to the power of intellectual curiosity. And as long-lost stories come back into view, one thing is clear: the past still has plenty to say, we just need new ways to listen.
