CTBUCL
Text and Image based Digital Humanities:providing access to
textual heritage in Flanders
Edward Vanhoutte
Director of Research & Publications, Royal Academy of Dutch
Language & LiteratureResearch Associate, UCL Centre for Digital
HumanitiesEditor-in-Chief, LLC: The Journal of Digital Scholarship
in the Humanities (OUP)
[email protected]@evanhoutte
Guest Lecture Wrzburg 13/12/2012
Guest Lecture Wrzburg 13/12/2012
Overview
Humanities Computing
Digital Humanities
Projects
Discussion
Auguste Rodin (1940-1917)
GatesOfHell
Rodin Museum Paris
Humanities
Computing
Failure
ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer)
Construction started 1943
Ballistic research during WWII
Operational in 1946
EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer)
First binary stored program computer
Ballistic research during WWII
Operational in 1951
Problem:
Computers were operational
But
War was over
Ada Lovelace (1815-1852)
Again, it [the operating mechanism, EV] might act upon other
things besides number, were objects found whose mutual fundamental
relations could be expressed by those of the abstract science of
operations, and which should be also susceptible of adaptations to
the action of the operating notation and mechanism of the engine.
Supposing, for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched
sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were
susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the engine might
compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of
complexity or extent. (Lovelace, 1961 [1843], p. 248-249)
Warren Weaver (1894-1978)
Science:Mathematics
Humanities:Machine Translation
Machine Translation
Warren Weaver:Cryptanalysis
Cold War
Andrew Donald Booth (1918-2009)Linguistic problems
Concordances
Frequency lists
Lemmatization Disputed authorship
Stylometry
Electronic Text Analysis
Roberto Busa (1913-2011)1950: plans for the Index
Thomisticus
Encoding categories of vocabulary during input automatic
linguistic analysis
Machine Translation
Electronic Text Analysis
Humanities Computing
Computational Linguistics (1966)
GatesOfHell
Rodin MuseumMeudon
2004
Digital Humanities?
Digital Humanist?
What is it?What is its purpose?
Definition?
The application of computational methods to research and
teaching in the humanities.John Unsworth
The use of digital media and tools to answer traditional
humanities questions, and the study of new questions that are
formed by the intersection of modern methods/tools/models and
humanitistic sources.Laurie Allen
Researchers working with digital materials, tools, or methods in
the humanities; researchers creating new digital materials, tools,
or methods in the humanities; researchers studying computing using
humanities methods.Stan Ruecker
A very rewarding activity which still scares people who don't
understand that computers can generate meaningevanhout
Instead of a definition, we have a genealogy, a network of
family resemblances among provisional schools of thought,
methodological interests, and preferred tools, a history of people
who have chosen to call themselves digital humanists and who in the
process of trying to define the term are creating that
definition.Rafael Alvarado
Social Category
Instead of a definition, we have a genealogy, a network of
family resemblances among provisional schools of thought,
methodological interests, and preferred tools, a history of people
who have chosen to call themselves digital humanists and who in the
process of trying to define the term are creating that
definition.Rafael Alvarado
Social Category
A tactical convenienceMatt Kirschenbaum
At a moment when the academy in general and the humanities in
particular are the object of massive and wrenching changes, digital
humanities emerges as a rare vector for jujitsu, simultaneously
serving to position the humanities at the very forefront of certain
valueladen agendasentrepreneurship, openness and public engagement,
futureoriented thinking, collaboration, interdisciplinarity, big
data, industry tieins, and distance or distributed educationwhile
at the same time allowing for various forms of intrainstitutional
mobility as new courses are mooted, new colleagues are hired, new
resources are allotted, and old resources are reallocated.
Matthew Kirschenbaum
Subscriptions: +25%Submissions: +300%
Digital Humanities
Of the humanities
Innovative
Asks the same questions in a different way
Interdisciplinary
Multilingual
Interactive
Self critical
Community building
Fun
The future of the humanities
Digital Humanities
Tries to model the surrounding world in order to reach at a
better understading of humans, their activities and what they
produce.
Text and Image based Digital Humanities:providing access to
textual heritage in Flanders
Edward Vanhoutte
Director of Research & Publications, Royal Academy of Dutch
Language & LiteratureResearch Associate, UCL Centre for Digital
HumanitiesEditor-in-Chief, LLC: The Journal of Digital Scholarship
in the Humanities (OUP)
[email protected]@evanhoutte
Guest Lecture Wrzburg 13/12/2012
