The Digital Humanities

There are several things to be covered in my blog this week
so here it goes:

The class readings: One theme that stood out from the selection of readings for this week was the idea of maintaining and establishing standards for text encoding as well as for the structure of the text which as James Cumming explained—and as I learned (previously having no knowledgewhatsoever of html) via this short tutorial—is the main point of encoding. Similarly Marilyn Deegan and Simon Tanner, in their piece on the conversion of primary sources, discussed the creation of standards for converting primary texts to digital versions. The creation of TEI, as most of the authors mentioned, has formed part of the solution for standardization at least for the digital humanities. From debates over standards digital humanists it appears have also engaged in theoretical debates on, as Jerome McGann puts it, what on text encoding means. Allen H. Renear takes us through this debate and defines text encoding as a “representation system for textually based cultural objects of all kinds.” Perry Willett too takes readers through what consists of an electronic text and the forms they make take in the digital humanities.

The in-class discussion: Needless to say, having limited knowledge of text encoding and of html I struggled through this week’s assigned readings. But the debates and themes I tried to glean from the texts seem to mirror, if only slightly, last Wednesday’s in-class debate which focused on the usefulness of electronic texts (digitized primary sources and books). While many of us remained reluctant to give up on non-digitized books and texts, we for the most part agreed that the digitization of text material in the humanities is inevitable. Thus an appropriate set of standards for converting primary sources and text encoding seem necessary, which as this week’s authors highlighted, is a process that has been ongoing for several years.

My classmates: Many of my colleagues have in their blogs made similar reflections on our class discussion. Sean for instance has provided us with a digitized version of the dead seas scrolls, proving that digitization is happening in a big way. I particularly enjoyed Robert’s cautionary tale, reminding us of the need for the authentic book experience in what he appropriately termed an “over-digitized” world. But I also agree with Melanie, digitization doesn’t necessarily mean we risk losing that authentic experience that comes with handling a document first-hand.

Other Blogs and Twitter: Oddly the Writing Women’s History blog I’m currently following has asked that women’s history enthusiasts lend their support to the History to Herstory project, a website containing archive documents, images, primary sources (photographs, letters, diaries, etc) all related to women’s history in Yorkshire. Just another example of digitization for the purpose of expanding historical knowledge among a wider audience, and one I look forward to exploring once I have the time. The Women’s History Network blog, another blog I’ve chosen to follow, has less to say about digitization, and focuses more on using the web as a space (for both academic and non-academic historians) to engage in theoretical debates on the state of historical scholarship, specifically related to women’s history. The efforts of the Network may please Robert as they make historical debate and inquiry available to a larger public audience particularly one outside of academia. Some interesting twitter posts appeared this week as well. Of the several feed’s I’m following aboutfemhistory is particularly active. Her posts this week have led to interesting resources on Abigail Adams and the Salem witch trials. Boston1775 has also been rather present, leading followers to interesting blog post from the American Antiquarian Society on an 18^th century letter written by a woman Hannah Weld  offering some insight on the values and beliefs of women in this period, often lacking from larger historical narratives of American revolutionary history. These twitter feeds, in addition to the two others I’m following (MsGeneologist and The18thCentury) have been useful in connecting me to a wider historical community engaged in discussing historical study and providing resources for enthusiasts.

The Digital Method: I’ve been learning more about Turkel’s Digital Method this week as well. I’ve created a Google Reader account and I’ve subscribed to most of my colleagues’ blogs and to the two outside blogs I’m following. Google Reader has made it much simpler for me to read what my classmates have to say and to respond to their ideas and criticisms. I no longer need to access their blogs separately, as I did last week. I simply open Google Reader and new posts appear without any effort on my part. I’ve also been playing around with html. HTML Dog was particularly helpful in learning the basics but I’m still trying to figure out how it all works. Other than that, I’m now much more comfortable with using twitter and have somewhat successfully created my own blog.

Until next time…

As part of the requirements for my digital humanities (DH) course, I presented to the class the topic of my M.A. MRP (major research paper) and included suggestions on how my project will be informed by the course and what I hope to learn from the course. The presentation was followed by a short class discussion.

 As I informed my fellow classmates I intend to uncover how religion encouraged Revolutionary Era women in America to challenge emerging gender structures, or at least afforded them the opportunity to participate in the public arenas of society. Using William Turkel’s Digital Method and any insights I may glean from my future DH project due in a few weeks, I’m hoping that using a DH approach will help me to 1) locate important sources, and 2) synthesize important information found within these sources. Further, I’ve considered the use of text analysis to look for patterns across texts written by 18^th century women.

Spencer suggested the use of a tool called DevonThink which I think may help to catalogue my sources. And Dr. Kee offered some useful suggestions for my MRP, even lending me a few books for my perusal. Melanie asked, quite rightly, whether I would be limiting my definition of “religion.” Her question reminds me that I still need to spend some time defining my terms and specifying what I mean by concepts like “religion.”  The discussion was relatively short but I appreciated the comments made. I hope what I presented made at least some sense to my audience, but as I reminded myself earlier, I’m still in the literature review phase and have a lot of kinks to work out before I can begin writing. In the end, I’m happy to have had the chance to share my research interests with my classmates.

This weekend has been largely devoted to making sense of a field of study I’ve only recently been introduced to: the digital humanities. After combing through a number of articles on the topic, I still feel lost in this world of simulation, text analysis, mapping, and other forms of computation I had very little knowledge of before last Wednesday when I had my first class in humanities computing at Brock U. Defining the digital humanities is a difficult task. Digital humanists themselves seem reluctant to define exactly what it is they do. This is probably because, as professors John Bonnett and Kevin Kee put it, the field is in a continuous “state of transition.” Dr. W. McCarty however provides us with a little illumination on the subject, looking at the relationship between the computer as a tool and the “agent-scholar” who skillfully puts that tool to use.

 Luckily, I’m not alone in this pursuit.  After reading the blogs of my classmates Sean and Ryan, I can sympathize with their own quests at making sense and making use of this avant-garde approach to humanities research.  Ryan, I too find it sad that I’m only now discovering this brilliant tool known as dropbox. Needless to say, I’m looking forward to applying further William Turkel’s Digital Method, and will from now on always make a backup. So far, I’ve successfully downloaded Zotero and have started to organize my research library. I’m also learning how to use Wiki and looking forward to interesting class discussions using this new platform.

This weekend I had a chance to explore a few blogs related to my own field of research. I’m particularly excited about the  Women’s History Network Blog which offers some thoughts for those interested in women’s history. I’ll also be keeping an eye on a blog called Writing Women’s History. The latest post discussed a fascinating 19th century sampler stitched by a young women and used to recount her life story. Also, I’m now officially signed-up for Twitter and currently following a number of women’s history enthusiasts. In fact, I followed a “tweet” to an interesting article about women and captivity narratives early today.