[en] Digital Surrealism: Visualizing Walt Disney Animation
StudiosKevin L. Ferguson, Queens College / CUNY
Abstract
[en]
There are a number of fruitful digital humanities approaches to cinema and media
studies, but most of them only pursue traditional forms of scholarship by
extracting a single variable from the audiovisual text that is already legible
to scholars. As an alternative, cinema and media studies should pursue a
mostly-ignored “digital surrealism” that uses computer-based methods to
transform film texts in radical ways not previously possible. This article
describes one such method using the z-projection function of the scientific
image analysis software ImageJ to sum film frames in order to create new
composite images. Working with the fifty-five feature-length films from Walt
Disney Animation Studios, I describe how this method allows for a unique
understanding of a film corpus not otherwise available to cinema and media
studies scholars.
[en] GIS and Literary History: Advancing Digital Humanities
research through the Spatial Analysis of historical travel writing and
topographical literaturePatricia Murrieta-Flores, Digital Humanities Research Centre, University of Chester; Christopher Donaldson, History Department, Lancaster University; Ian Gregory, History Department, Lancaster University
Abstract
[en]
Exploratory studies have demonstrated the benefits of implementing Geographic
Information Systems (GIS) technology in literary and cultural-historical
research. These studies have done much to affirm the power and flexibility of
GIS technology as a resource for humanities scholarship. At the same time,
however, these studies share a common limitation in that they tend to rely on
the analysis of point-based cartographic representations. Such representations
are suitable for modelling quantitative geographical phenomena, but they are
inadequate for modelling qualitative human phenomena. This inadequacy
constitutes a significant problem for researchers who aspire to analyse the
geographical experiences and spatial relationships represented in works of
literature, including works that contain accounts of travel. The present article
proposes a solution to this problem by demonstrating how advanced spatial
analyses within GIS such as Cost-Surface Analysis (CSA) and Least-Cost-Path
Analysis (LCP) can be used to facilitate more nuanced interpretations of
historical works of travel writing and topographical literature. Specifically,
the article explains how GIS, CSA and LCP can be combined to build coherent
spatial models of the journeys recorded in the works of three canonical
eighteenth-century British travellers, each of whom composed influential
accounts of their travels through the English Lake District: the poet Thomas
Gray (1716–1771), the naturalist Thomas Pennant (1726–1798) and the
agriculturist Arthur Young (1741–1820).
[en] A Culture of non-citation: Assessing the digital impact of
British History Online and the Early English Books Online Text Creation
PartnershipJonathan Blaney, Institute of Historical Research, University of London; Judith Siefring, Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Abstract
[en]
This article discusses the culture of digital citation within the humanities,
with specific reference to research done on the citation of two well-used
digital resources: British History Online and the Early English Books Online
Text Creation Partnership. Because these two resources are available in both
print and digital form, they provide a good test case of whether academics
prefer to cite print sources when they have used digital resources in their
research.
[en] A Hybrid Model for Managing DH ProjectsEdin Tabak, University of Zenica
Abstract
[en]
A project is a basic unit of digital humanities (DH) scholarship, which suggests
that DH as a discipline should pay more attention to project management, and
perhaps to develop the project management models, principles, and methods that
are more specific to the discipline. However, DH literature deals with this
issue merely by listing the basic principles, or offering specific
“tips and tricks,” which seriously simplifies management
of DH projects. DH projects involve building (or at least using) digital tools,
which brings the complex tensions between digital and humanistic aspects of
these projects. In order to address such a complexity, there is a need for a
model for managing DH projects that will learn from information studies and
methods in software development, while still being based on values of the
humanistic tradition and methods. This article combines a model of scholarly
information practices with some concepts of agile software development into a
hybrid model for managing DH projects.
[en] Fitting Personal Interpretation with the Semantic Web: lessons
learned from PlinyJohn Bradley, King's College London; Michele Pasin, Springer Nature
Abstract
[en]
In this paper we expand Stefan Gradmann’s question at WWW2012 “Thinking in the graph: will Digital Humanists ever do
so?” to consider whether humanists, more generally than just
“digital” ones, might do thinking that is, at least to
some useful degree, “in the graph” too. Drawing on the
experience of the Pliny project, and recent work done within that project to
explore how Pliny materials might connect with the semantic web, we explore ways
in which structured “graph-like” thinking might be revealed
in — to “peek out” from — parts of humanities research that
is common to digital and non-digital humanists alike. Out of this, we propose a
number of different ways that scholars might engage with the Semantic Web, and
provide examples – arising from the building of a prototype extension to Pliny –
of how these engagements could be dealt with. We also explore the challenge of
ambiguity and incompleteness in scholarship, explain how 2D space operates in
Pliny to cope, to some degree at least, with these issues, and consider the
boundaries between the expressiveness of 2D space and the formal graph model of
the Semantic Web. We end by proposing several possible avenues for future work
that arise from our work so far.
[en] Where’s the ML in DH? And Where’s the DH in ML? The
Relationship between Modern Languages and Digital Humanities, and an Argument
for a Critical DHML Thea Pitman, University of Leeds; Claire Taylor, University of Liverpool
Abstract
[en]
This article addresses the relationship of the disciplines of Modern Languages
and Digital Humanities in Anglophone academia. It briefly compares and contrasts
the nature of these “disciplines” – most frequently conceived
of as either inter- or transdisciplines – before going on to examine in some
detail the participation of Modern Linguists in Digital Humanities and that of
Digital Humanists in Modern Languages. It argues that, while there is growing
evidence of work that crosses “disciplinary” boundaries
between DH and ML in both directions, more work of this sort needs to be done to
optimise the potential of both disciplines. It also makes a particular case for
Digital Humanities to remain open to critical cultural studies approaches to
digital materials as pertaining to the discipline rather than focusing
exclusively on more instrumental definitions of Digital Humanities. This
argument is consistent with the concerns raised by other scholars with regard to
the need for heterogeneity of approach and in particular for increased cultural
criticism in Digital Humanities scholarship. Furthermore, we argue that this is
where Modern Linguists can make their most decisive contribution to Digital
Humanities research, offering what we term a “critical DHML” approach. We
illustrate our arguments with a range of examples from the intersection of ML
and DH in the broad field of Hispanic Studies, including the major findings of
our own research into digital cultural production in a Latin American context
conducted over the last ten years.
[en] Structure over Style: Collaborative Authorship and the Revival
of Literary CapitalismSimon Fuller, National University of Ireland, Maynooth; James O'Sullivan, University of Sheffield
Abstract
[en]
James Patterson is the world’s best-selling living author, but his approach to
writing is heavily criticised for being too commercially driven — in many
respects, he is considered the master of the airport novel, a highly-productive
source of commuter fiction. A former marketing professional, Patterson uses his
business acumen to drive sales of his novels, which are largely written in
conjunction with lesser-known co-authors. Using stylometry, this paper analyses
the extent to which Patterson actually contributes to the writing of his novels,
situating his process within the context of literary capitalism and the novel as
a force of modernity.
[en] The Kuzushiji Project: Developing a Mobile Learning Application for
Reading Early Modern Japanese TextsYuta Hashimoto, Kyoto University; Yoichi Iikura, Osaka University; Yukio Hisada, Osaka University; SungKook Kang, Osaka University; Tomoyo Arisawa, Osaka University; Daniel Kobayashi-Better, Osaka University
Abstract
[en]
Learning how to read kuzushiji is the most important
skill for studying the history of pre-modern Japan and classical Japanese literature.
However, the difficulty of acquiring this skill has prevented both scholars and amateurs
from other fields and countries to work on classical Japanese writings. The kuzushiji project is an attempt to provide accessible resources
and training on mobile devices for learning kuzushiji,
and available for free. KuLA, the learning app we developed, has already been downloaded
more than 36,000 times since its release in February 2016. In this paper, we describe our
background, aims, and approach of our project, as well as the implementation of KuLA.
[en] Pedagogical Entryways into Digital Humanities: A Review of
Linda K. Hughes and Sarah R. Robbins’ Teaching
Transatlanticism (Edinburgh University Press, 2015)Elizabeth Polcha, Northeastern University
Abstract
[en]
This review of Linda K. Hughes and Sarah R. Robbins’ Teaching Transatlanticism considers the representation of digital
humanities in a literary studies pedagogical anthology. Hughes and Robbins
position digital humanities methodology as the future of pedagogical research in
the field of transatlanticism, compiling digital humanities scholarship into a
section titled “Envisioning Digital
Transatlanticism.”
Teaching Transatlanticism thus illustrates the ways
literary scholars are crossing over into digital humanities research, and how
literary scholars more versed in the digital humanities are welcoming new
participants.
