dm-l November 2014

dm-l@uleth.ca

13 participants
21 discussions

new study: "Diagnosis of a ŒPlague¹ Image: A Digital Cautionary Tale²
by Monica Green 28 Nov '14

28 Nov '14

Dear DM-L Colleagues, I and two colleagues have just published a study correcting a “misdiagnosed” plague image from the 14th century: Monica H. Green, Kathleen Walker-Meikle, and Wolfgang Müller, “Diagnosis of a ‘Plague’ Image: A Digital Cautionary Tale,” in Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World: Rethinking the Black Death, inaugural issue of The Medieval Globe 1 (Fall 2014), 309-26, available open-access at: http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/medieval_globe/1/. (Open-access funding was underwritten in this case by the World History Center at the University of Pittsburgh.) I’m sending notification to this list because this study may have implications for the wider Digital Medievalist community. What we argue is that a mistaken label was attached to an image being sold in the British Library’s “Images Online” database (where high-quality images are sold for a fee): the BL labels it “Plague victims blessed by priest." As far as we were able to determine, the misinformation originated with the staff of the BL and did not come from earlier scholarly misinterpretations. We argue that in fact it is clearly an image of leprosy—a “reading” of the image supported both by medieval iconographic traditions and, more importantly, by the text which surrounds the image in its original manuscript context. (We provide a full edition and translation of the Latin text in our study.) The British Library has been apprised of our study, and they responded that they do intend to alter the meta-data attached to the image in their databases. I assume that also means that they will cease to market it as a “plague” image. (Images Online is the fee-based distribution office of the BL; the image is also available, at a lower resolution, in the BL Illuminated Manuscripts catalogue, where it is under a CC0 license.) Even if they correct the metadata, however, there is no way to “take back” all the incorrect uses of the image, given how widely it has already been disseminated into popular culture with the mistaken interpretation. (Most recently, in the BBC’s History magazine, October 2014, p. 90.) I am not a coder myself and have only a user’s appreciation of the technical side of Digital Humanities. Still, given that metadata might well be seen as having a comparable value to the medieval texts and images we are concerned to digitize and/or analyze digitally, I thought this might be a case that people might find instructive. Please feel free to contact me directly (monica.green(a)asu.edu) should you have any further questions about the image or our study. -- Monica Green Professor of History School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies Box 874302 975 S Myrtle Ave Arizona State University Tempe, AZ 85287-4302 U.S.A. monica.green(a)asu.edu<mailto:monica.green@asu.edu> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/01/science/leprosy-still-claiming-victims.ht… Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World: Rethinking the Black Death - inaugural issue of The Medieval Globe (published 21 November 2014) http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/medieval_globe/1/ https://asu.academia.edu/MonicaHGreen https://webapp4.asu.edu/directory/person/384868

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This week's blog
by Lisa Fagin Davis 28 Nov '14

28 Nov '14

This week, The Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies: http://manuscriptroadtrip.wordpress.com/2014/11/24/manuscript-road-trip-the… - Lisa -- Lisa Fagin Davis Executive Director Medieval Academy of America 17 Dunster St., Suite 202 Cambridge, Mass. 02138 Phone: 617 491-1622 Fax: 617 492-3303 Email: LFD(a)TheMedievalAcademy.org

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Fwd: [open-humanities] Digital Manuscripts Toolkit project job vacancies
by Daniel O'Donnell 28 Nov '14

28 Nov '14

-------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: [open-humanities] Digital Manuscripts Toolkit project job vacancies Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 13:00:11 +0000 From: Iain Emsley <iainemsley(a)gmail.com> Reply-To: A list for people interested in the use of open source tools and open access in humanities teaching and research <open-humanities(a)lists.okfn.org> To: A list for people interested in the use of open source tools and open access in humanities teaching and research <open-humanities(a)lists.okfn.org> Hi, I've just come across a couple of job vacancies that may be of interest on the Digital Manuscripts Toolkit project: Front end/Javascript Developer: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AJX020/front-end-javascript-developer/ Open Source Community Manager: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AKB773/open-source-community-engagement-manager/ Details of the vacancies and so on are on the links as well as how to apply. Thanks, Iain Iain Emsley

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Call for paper: Digital Humanities: the example of Antiquity
by Pierazzo, Elena 28 Nov '14

28 Nov '14

With the usual apologies for cross-posting (French version below) ================== The University ‘Stendhal’ of Grenoble 3, the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme-Alpes, L’Université Grenoble 2, the Humboldt Chair for Digital Humanities and HISOMA organise the conference “Digital Humanities: the example of Antiquity”. The conference will take place in Grenoble, from the 2nd to the 4th of September 2015. The goal of this conference is twofold: at the same time an assessment of existing methodologies and a looking forward to new ones. It also has the objective of evaluating current practices of the application of Digital Humanities to the study of antiquity, practices which are quite numerous but also sometimes disconnected from each other and without an overall understanding. The conference also aims to contribute toward the design of new projects and the opening new paths, by establishing a dialogue between scholars for whom the Digital Humanities are already familiar and those wishing to acquire knowledge and practice in this domain. The confirmed Keynote speakers are Gregory Crane (Tufts University & University of Leipzig) and Charlotte Roueché (King’s College London). The conference will be preceded by a workshop, particularly aimed at doctoral students, but open to everybody. The study of Antiquity encompass very large geographical, historical and linguistic domains: from the Mediterranean to the borders of Europe and Asia, from the end of Prehistory to the Middle Ages, and from Greek and Latin to the languages of the Near and Middle East. This study is also distributed among different disciplines: Linguistics, Philology, Literary Criticism, Philosophy, History, Archaeology, Epigraphy, Numismatics, etc. In all these disciplinary traditions, the application of computational techniques has been employed for several decades now, an application that has left quite a strong mark on the study of Antiquity. The employment of digital methods has also enabled substantial changes of methodology, the extent of which remains to be assessed. Considering the diversity of such approaches in a context of research which is more and more internationalised, it seems worthwhile to present to scholars and PhD students an overview of current research in order to develop future endeavours. The conference will be organised around four key topics: Editions of literary texts; Study of scholia and commentaries; Archaeology and Epigraphy; Prosopography and historical geography. Papers will focus on methodological questions and/or discuss general issues emerging within such topics. We also encourage proposals of posters presenting work in progress. Please send your proposals of up to 300 words, in French or English (which will be the languages of the conference) by the 15th of January 2015 to the organisers: icogitore(a)msh-alpes.fr elena.pierazzo(a)u-grenoble3.fr NB: In order to encourage the participation of young researchers, we will provide a limited number of bursaries. If you wish to be considered for one of these then please include a letter of motivation with your application. ========================= [French version] Le colloque «Humanités numériques : l’exemple de l’Antiquité», qui aura lieu à Grenoble du 2 au 4 septembre 2015, est organisé par l’Université Grenoble 3, l’Université Grenoble 2, la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme-Alpes, The Humboldt Chair for Digital Humanities, HISOMA. L’ambition de ce colloque est double, tournée vers du bilan et des perspectives, dans une orientation méthodologique. Ainsi, il a pour objectif de faire le point sur les pratiques actuelles, déjà nombreuses, mais souvent éparses, dans le domaine des humanités numériques appliquées à l’étude de l’Antiquité. En outre, il contribuera à définir de nouveaux projets et à ouvrir des pistes nouvelles en établissant un dialogue entre des spécialistes déjà habitués au numérique et des enseignants-chercheurs désireux de développer leurs connaissances et leur pratique dans ce domaine. Les keynote speakers ayant confirmé leur participation sont Gregory Crane (Tufts University & Univ. of Leipzig) et Charlotte Roueché (King’s College London). Les deux jours de colloque proprement dit (3 et 4 septembre) seront précédés d’une journée d’ateliers destinés spécialement aux doctorants mais ouvertes aussi aux enseignants chercheurs. Les sciences de l’Antiquité embrassent un très large domaine géographique (de la Méditerranée aux confins de l’Europe et de l’Asie), historique (de la fin de la Préhistoire au début du Moyen Âge) et linguistique (principalement grec et latin, mais sans négliger les langues du Proche- et Moyen-Orient). Elles reposent également sur des traditions disciplinaires variées : linguistique, philologie, critique littéraire, philosophie, histoire, archéologie, épigraphie, numismatique, etc. Dans toutes ces traditions disciplinaires, l’application de technologies numériques a connu, depuis plusieurs décennies, un développement considérable, qui n’a pas manqué de se marquer aussi dans les sciences de l’Antiquité. Les technologies numériques ont permis des renouvellements méthodologiques, dont nous n’avons pas encore pris toute la mesure. Devant la diversité de ces approches, dans un contexte de plus en plus internationalisé, il semble intéressant de proposer aux enseignants-chercheurs et aux doctorants un tour d’horizon de la recherche actuelle, qui permettra de dégager des perspectives pour le futur. Quatre axes ont été retenus : éditions de textes littéraires ; études de scholies et commentaires ; archéologie et épigraphie ; prosopographie et géographie. Les communications devront porter sur des questions méthodologiques et/ou poser des problèmes inhérents à ces démarches. Il est également possible de proposer des posters présentant des projets en cours. Les propositions de communication ou de posters (300 mots maximum, en français ou anglais, qui seront les langues de communication du colloque) sont à adresser au comité d’organisation : icogitore(a)msh-alpes.fr elena.pierazzo(a)u-grenoble3.fr au plus tard le 15 janvier 2015 NB : Quelques bourses sont prévues pour permettre la participation des jeunes chercheurs et doctorants. Si vous êtes intéressés par cette aide, merci de l’indiquer et d’argumenter votre demande par une lettre de motivation. -- Elena Pierazzo Professor of Italian Studies and Digital Humanities Bureau F307 Université de Grenoble 3 'Stendhal' BP 25 38040 Grenoble Cedex 9 Tel. +33 4 76828032 Visiting Senior Research Fellow King's College London Department of Digital Humanities King's College London 26-29 Drury Lane London WC2B 5RL

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Fwd: ESSAY: on becoming a classics professor
by Sara L. Uckelman 21 Nov '14

21 Nov '14

Probably more directed to the digital classicists, but I'm not on that list, and with not much change, much of this would apply to medievalists too. -Sara -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: ESSAY: on becoming a classics professor Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2014 09:34:32 +0000 From: Clark, Stephen <srlclark(a)LIVERPOOL.AC.UK> Reply-To: Clark, Stephen <srlclark(a)LIVERPOOL.AC.UK> To: PHILOS-L(a)LIVERPOOL.AC.UK ________________________________________ Via: humanist-bounces(a)lists.digitalhumanities.org [humanist-bounces(a)lists.digitalhumanities.org] on behalf of Humanist Discussion Group [willard.mccarty(a)mccarty.org.uk] Sent: 21 November 2014 07:45 Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 14:30:45 +0100 From: Gregory Crane <gregory.crane(a)tufts.edu> Subject: Essay: "So you want to become a professor of Greek and/or Latin?" For what its worth: it is the time of year when people apply for PhD programs in Classics (and everything else). I wrote this essay because I think that the Digital Humanities have now reached a point where anyone who wants to start a Classics career now (and thus would, if just out of college, be looking at a career that could run through 2060) really needs to come to grips with the "digital turn". I don't know of any PhD program for Greek and Latin that really addresses the challenges that we face as we reinvent our field to flourish in the digital world of which we are all already a part. (I am hoping to be buried with counter-examples!) Gregory Crane* So you want to become a professor Greek and/or Latin? Think hard about a PhD in Digital Humanities. Alexander von Humboldt Professor of Digital Humanities Universität Leipzig Professor of Classics Winnick Family Chair of Technology and Entrepreneurship Tufts University I decided to write this piece because this is the time of year when those who wish to become professional students of Greek and Latin are deciding where they should apply for graduate schools. I am now starting to see that the most interesting Phd projects on Greek and Latin are taking place in PhD programs for the Digital Humanities and I think that anyone who wishes to develop a career of sustained satisfaction needs to think carefully about how they move forward. At the present time, I am not aware of any traditional program in Greek and Latin that prepares students for satisfying and sustainable careers. This essay falls into three parts. First I suggest some words of caution, including the well-known challenges about actually landing a permanent faculty position, the amount of work that you will need to commit if you want to maximize your chances for success and then, more substantively, something about the actual work that supports faculty Greek and Latin faculty positions in the United States and (much of) Europe. The second section briefly touches upon some fundamental topics that we must resolve if we are to rethink the study of Greek and Latin (as I think we must if we are to survive, or perhaps even flourish): the information that we produce, the knowledge that we internalize, the values that we advance and the basis for the survival of our field. The third section describes some topics that you will probably not find in a standard program for Greek and Latin but that would greatly enhance your ability to develop a sustainable career. [for the rest: http://tinyurl.com/mwx6m35]* Messages to the list are archived at http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/philos-l.html and http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.region.europe. Current posts are also available via Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PhilosL To sign off the list send a blank message to philos-l-unsubscribe-request(a)liverpool.ac.uk. Discussions should be moved to chora: enrol via http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/chora.html.

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Fwd: [DIGITALCLASSICIST] Tufts.edu: Tenure Track Mellon Bridget Assistant Professorship in Greco-Roman and Islamic Traditions -- Digital Humanist applicants are particularly welcome!
by Daniel O'Donnell 20 Nov '14

20 Nov '14

FYI, a really interesting position for people on this list! -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: [DIGITALCLASSICIST] Tufts.edu: Tenure Track Mellon Bridget Assistant Professorship in Greco-Roman and Islamic Traditions -- Digital Humanist applicants are particularly welcome! Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 08:32:34 +0100 From: Gregory Crane <gregory.crane(a)TUFTS.EDU> Reply-To: The Digital Classicist List <DIGITALCLASSICIST(a)JISCMAIL.AC.UK> To: DIGITALCLASSICIST(a)JISCMAIL.AC.UK I want to make sure that everyone sees this -- the search is going forward and now (=ASAP) is the time to get your application. http://ase.tufts.edu/classics/about/jobs.htm Classics: Mellon Bridge Assistant Professorship *Greco-Roman and Islamic Traditions* The School of Arts and Sciences at Tufts University seeks a scholar who studies the contact between the Greco-Roman and Islamic traditions during any period through the Renaissance for a tenure-track Mellon Bridge Assistant Professorship, to begin September 2015. This newly-created position is being supported by a grant from the Mellon Foundation to promote scholarship and teaching that bridges different departments and programs in the humanities. Mellon Bridge professors will be grounded in one department but will also teach in other academic departments or programs, according to their areas of expertise. This position will have a primary appointment in the Department of Classics, and a secondary appointment in one or more of the following programs and departments: Arabic; Archaeology; Art History; History; International Relations; Middle Eastern Studies; Philosophy; Religion; Romance Languages; and a potentially new interdisciplinary master's program, Digital Technologies for Pre-Modern Studies, which is currently in the planning stage. The School will extend secondary appointments and cross-list courses in other departments and programs as appropriate. The successful candidate will receive an appointment as a fellow at the Center for the Humanities at Tufts (CHAT) for the duration of the pre-tenure probationary period. The intellectual emphasis of the Department of Classics is the transmission of knowledge across cultures and time. The Department currently teaches courses in Greek, Latin, Medieval Latin, and Sanskrit and in the archaeology and history of Egypt, the Greco-Roman world, Ancient Northern Europe, and the Mediterranean, as well as in the comparison of Greek, Roman, and Chinese history. In addition, department members and affiliated faculty maintain teaching and research interests in the medieval and early modern world. The Department of Classics also houses the Perseus Digital Library, one of the largest and most actively used open-access humanities databases in the world—currently containing approximately 165 million searchable words in Greek, Latin, Arabic, French, German, Italian, and English, and receiving more than eight million visits last year alone, with a returning-visitor rate of 66%. Perseus's collections range from Homer through the Renaissance to nineteenth-century American literature and contemporary scholarship, and also include photographs and descriptions of art objects, buildings, and archaeological sites. The Perseus Perseids Platform, supported by a generous grant from the Mellon Foundation, is currently expanding Tufts' digital infrastructure by facilitating the publication, revision, and conservation of previously unavailable texts, other media, and original research by faculty and students. Applicants should demonstrate knowledge of Arabic as well as either Greek or Latin. Evidence of a strong record of scholarship is required. Doctorate and minimum of two years' full- or part-time teaching experience is required. We especially welcome candidates who can support student research at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Candidates who are interested in augmenting the strengths of Tufts' Perseus Digital Library <http://www.perseus.tufts.edu> and its Perseids Platform in Greek, Latin, Classical Arabic, or other languages are especially encouraged to apply. The successful candidate will be expected to teach undergraduate courses related to his or her specific research area using works in translation, as well as to have the capacity to teach undergraduate and graduate courses on works in the original Latin and/or Greek. Applicants should submit a letter of application, /curriculum vitae/, writing sample (less than 20 pages), research and teaching statements (each no longer than a single-spaced page), and should arrange to have three confidential reference letters submitted directly by the authors, to: https://apply.interfolio.com/27062 <https://apply.interfolio.com/27062>. Questions about the position may be directed to Search Committee Chair, Vickie Sullivan, at vickie.sullivan(a)tufts.edu <mailto:vickie.sullivan@tufts.edu>. Review of applications will begin November 21, 2014, and will continue until the position is filled. Tufts University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity employer. We are committed to increasing the diversity of our faculty. Members of underrepresented groups are strongly encouraged to apply. ©2014 Tufts University. All rights reserved. Site designed & maintained by ITS.

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Fwd: Folger/Penn Early Modern Transcribe-a-thon in Philadelphia, December 4th, noon-midnight
by Dot Porter 19 Nov '14

19 Nov '14

(Apologies for cross-posting, please share.) On December 4th, staff from the Folger Shakespeare Library's Early Modern Manuscripts Online (EMMO) Project ( http://collation.folger.edu/2013/11/emmo-early-modern-manuscripts-online/) and the University of Pennsylvania Library's Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts (www.library.upenn.edu/kislak/) will be on hand to introduce participants (and anyone who happens to wander by) to the art of transcribing English manuscripts from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Transcribathon will take place in the Class of 1978 Orrery Pavillion in the Kislak Center on the 6th floor of Penn's Van Pelt Library, 3420 Walnut St., Philadelphia, PA. Transcribathon website: http://sceti.library.upenn.edu/Transcribathon/ If you like puzzles and/or are interested in the early modern period then you should consider joining the transcribathon! Work by yourself or with friends. You might stay for just a few lines, or get hooked and transcribe an entire piece. Early Modern Manuscripts Online, or EMMO, is an IMLS-funded three-year project that will ultimately provide scholars and the general public with convenient web access to a searchable database of transcriptions and digital images of a substantial number of the Folger Shakespeare Library's English manuscripts from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: letters, diaries, wills, coats of arms, literary works, recipe books, miscellanies, and more. The first phase of the project consists of creating and gathering transcriptions, in order to create a corpus that is then vetted for accuracy and consistency. -- *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Dot Porter (MA, MSLS) Digital Medievalist, Digital Librarian Email: dot.porter(a)gmail.com Personal blog: dotporterdigital.org Medieval Electronic Scholarly Alliance: http://www.mesa-medieval.org MESA blog: http://mesamedieval.wordpress.com/ MESA on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MedievalElectronicScholarlyAlliance *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* -- *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Dot Porter (MA, MSLS) Digital Medievalist, Digital Librarian Email: dot.porter(a)gmail.com Personal blog: dotporterdigital.org Medieval Electronic Scholarly Alliance: http://www.mesa-medieval.org MESA blog: http://mesamedieval.wordpress.com/ MESA on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MedievalElectronicScholarlyAlliance *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

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Workshop Brno 1./2.12.2014
by Georg Vogeler 19 Nov '14

19 Nov '14

Dear colleagues, you might be interested in the conference "Historical Sources Just One Click Away. The Issue of Digital Editions and Accessing Historical Sources in Virtual Space" held at Masaryk University, Brno, Faculty of Arts, Department of Auxiliary Historical Sciences and Archive Studies (the Conference Room: Arna Nováka 1, Building C, 2nd floor, Dean Office) on 1st – 2nd December 2014 http://www.phil.muni.cz/wpvh/home/Downloads/workshop%20digi%20edice.pdf Contact: Petr Elbel elbel(a)phl.muni.cz -- ------------------------------------- Assistant Professor Dr. Georg Vogeler Zentrum für Informationsmodellierung - Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities Universität Graz A-8010 Graz | Merangasse 70 Tel. +43 316 380 8033 <http://informationsmodellierung.uni-graz.at> - <http://gams.uni-graz.at> Institut für Dokumentologie und Editorik e.V. <http://www.i-d-e.de> International Center for Archival Research ICARus <http://www.icar-us.eu>

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Fwd: [DHSI] Call for Papers: Women's History in the Digital World 2015
by Daniel O'Donnell 18 Nov '14

18 Nov '14

-------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: [DHSI] Call for Papers: Women's History in the Digital World 2015 Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 12:42:35 -0700 From: Evan McGonagill <emcgonagil(a)brynmawr.edu> To: institute(a)lists.uvic.ca <institute(a)lists.uvic.ca> Apologies for cross-posting *Call for Papers: Women's History in the Digital World 2015* The Second Conference of The Albert M. Greenfield Digital Center for the History of Women's Education May 21-22, 2015, Bryn Mawr College GENERAL INFORMATION Women’s History in the Digital World 2015, the second conference of The Albert M. Greenfield Digital Center for the History of Women’s Education <http://greenfield.brynmawr.edu/>, will be held on the campus of Bryn Mawr College <https://www.brynmawr.edu/> on May 21-22. We aim to bring together experts, novices, and all those in between to share insights, lessons, and resources for the many projects emerging at the crossroads of history, the digital humanities, and women’s and gender studies. Continuing a conversation begun at our inaugural meeting in 2013, the conference will feature the work of librarians and archivists, faculty, students, and other stakeholders in the development of women’s and gender histories within digital scholarship. The conference will feature a keynote address by Claire Bond Potter <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v1/url?u=http://chronicle.com/blognetwork…>, Professor of History and Co-Director of the Humanities Action Lab at The New School for Public Engagement. Panels will be scheduled during the day Thursday, May 21, and the morning of May 22; a projects showcase and digital lab will offer opportunities for unstructured conversation and demonstrations. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES We invite individual papers or full panel proposals on women’s and gender history projects with a digital component, investigating the complexities of creating, managing, researching and/or teaching with digital resources and digitized materials. All thematic areas, geographies, and time periods are welcome: this is a chance to share knowledge, network, and promote collaborations that locate new possibilities. To submit a proposal, please send the following information by email to greenfieldhwe(a)brynmawr.edu <mailto:greenfieldhwe@brynmawr.edu>: complete contact information including current email and institutional affiliation, if any; short (150-200 word) biography for each presenter; and abstract (s) of the proposed presentation (500 words for single paper, poster, or demonstration, or 1,500-2000 words for panels of 3 papers) The deadline for submissions is *Friday, January 16, 2015*. INFORMATION ON THE GREENFIELD DIGITAL CENTER Women’s History in the Digital World 2015 is organized by The Albert M. Greenfield Digital Center for the History of Women’s Education with the support of Bryn Mawr College Libraries and The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation. Launched in 2011, and housed in Bryn Mawr College Special Collections, the Center serves as an online locus of scholarship on the history of women’s higher education. Through its blog, exhibits, instructional lesson plans, and digital collections the Center provides informative materials and a digital space for teaching and learning on these topics. Bryn Mawr College is located less than fifteen miles outside of Center City Philadelphia <http://www.brynmawr.edu/campus/visiting.shtml>, easily accessible by both car and public transportation. Visit the 2013 conference repository to read more about our first meeting: http://repository.brynmawr.edu/greenfield_conference/ <http://repository.brynmawr.edu/greenfield_conference/>. To learn more about the Greenfield Digital Center, visit http://greenfield.brynmawr.edu <http://greenfield.brynmawr.edu>. For updates, follow the Greenfield Digital Center on Twitter: @GreenfieldHWE <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v1/url?u=https://twitter.com/GreenfieldHW…> and the conference hashtag, #WHDigWrld <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v1/url?u=https://twitter.com/hashtag/whdi…>.

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Call for Chapters: "Crossing the Virtual Divide: Digital Tools and Digital Divides in the Practice of Medieval Studies"
by Matthew Davis 16 Nov '14

16 Nov '14

Dear Colleagues, Please forgive any duplication of this message in your inbox. We are in the process of putting together a volume of chapters and commentary, currently under strong consideration by Amsterdam University Press, discussing the problems and opportunities of digital methods and tools for the specific humanistic problems scholars working with medieval texts and materials face. You do not have to self-identify as a digital humanities scholar to contribute – only have an interest in what is made possible by these new methodologies or a project you are working on that includes a digital element. It is also our desire that the volume becomes a conversation, and as such we would like all authors writing for the volume to read and comment on the other chapters when the topics are of interest. If you have an idea for a chapter that you think might fit the planned outline of the book, attached below, please send an abstract of your proposed chapter (roughly a page) to matthew(a)matthewedavis.net <mailto:matthew@matthewedavis.net> by December 1st. Our plan is that all chapters will be completed and in the editors hands by November of 2015 and the completed volume, including commentary, will be in the hands of the publishers by March of 2016. Thank you, Matthew Evan Davis North Carolina State University Tamsyn Rose-Steel Johns Hopkins University Ece Turnator University of Texas at Austin — The book will be organized into four broad categories intended to reflect the practice of digital humanities in medieval studies, and reflecting our desire to explore both the contributors’ work on digital medieval projects and their thoughts on how digital tools and methods have changed medieval study. These categories should not be seen as an attempt to wall off methods of scholarship – the intention of the volume is that the contributed pieces will be in dialogue with each other – but to place thematically similar pieces in proximity to each other. The categories are: • Texts and Contexts The binary foundation of the digital – the zero and one or off and on at the heart of it – causes its division into discrete pieces. That tendency them migrates up the chain of data categorization, placing those discrete items into their own pigeonholes. Those things that resist neat categorization or binary distinction have a tendency to be lost, and that loss will only increase as more and more analog cultural artifacts are described and categorized digitally. Those chapters in the Texts and Contexts section are thus concerned not only with the content of a work – things intentionally placed such as the text of a poem, the image of an artistic work or sculpture, or the presentation layer of a website – but with the ancillary elements that define, or once defined, the context of the work and which are equally important to its production and understanding. • Things and Spaces Complementary to the question of text and context is one of representation: how do you represent a three-dimensional object, with its real, physical presence, in an essentially two-dimensional digital construct presented on a screen? Should there be large- scale visualization spaces available so that individuals can ‘walk’ inside a scale representation of a medieval cathedral, for example, and if so how should the cathedral be represented? Should its artificial nature be occluded in an attempt at true verisimilitude or should it be acknowledged and the real and physical privileged? Furthermore, our relationships with virtual representations of small objects, such as codices, appear on the surface to be well-trod ground but in fact their reconstruction forces us to think anew about concepts such as reception and memory. The chapters in this section engage with the presentation of objects as objects, with their own physicality and cultural weight, and question how best to both engage with and honor all of those aspects digitally. • Tools and Techniques Because very few digital tools and platforms are actually built for humanities questions, much less the specific questions that medievalists working with those tools might ask, there is a tension between what the researcher wants from the tool, what the tool can do, and what the tool might be reasonably be made able to do. The chapters in this category deal primarily with the technical opportunities and issues of using computational tools to do medieval humanities scholarship. What exactly are the underlying implications of choosing a particular metadata standard – can such choices be seen as ‘neutral’? In choosing a tool such as TEI or creating an algorithm to track word usage across a corpus, to what are scholars committing themselves, and what are they discarding? • Collaborations Due to the nature of training in the humanities and the hardware and software packages necessary to undertake a digital project, there are very few scholars who can engage in a digital project alone. Thus, unlike the traditional model of the lone scholar working on a monograph, digital scholarship tends both to be collaborative and to require significant funding. The scholar who manages such a project faces two interrelated challenges: first, that the project not exceed its original scholarly intent – a condition known to the programming community as “scope creep.” Second, that all members of the collaborative team be rewarded in the ways that are meaningful to their particular discipline – a CV line for the scholar, a service item or additional technical tool for a library employee, or a particularly challenging technical “hack” that can then be used elsewhere or foregrounded on the resume for the programmer. The chapters in this section discuss specific pitfalls involved in trying to explain and justify a medievally-focused digital project to the larger funding structures of an institution. Intentionally broad, these categories are not designed to be traditionally disciplinary. Instead, our aim is that they reflect the interdisciplinary nature of some of the best digital humanities projects, the holistic nature of medieval culture that has been artificially divided by modern disciplinary boundaries, and the push towards interdisciplinary scholarship in the academy. Furthermore, by suggesting an alternate way of thinking about the objects of our study and the scholarship produced, notions that this “isn’t my area” are abolished and discussions amongst the participants – either in the volume itself or in an ancillary website – are fostered. We are envisioning roughly sixteen chapters to the volume divided amongst the four categories, with a different author writing each chapter. After completing their chapters the authors will be encouraged to read and comment on each other’s work, and that conversation will be included in the volume and hopefully on an ancillary, ongoing website forum.

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dm-l November 2014