DHQ: Digital Humanities Quarterly: Preview

Building Bridges: Collaboration between Computer Sciences and Media Studies in a Television Archive Project

Jasmijn Van Gorp, Utrecht University; Marc Bron, Schibsted

Abstract [en]

Narrelations — Visualizing Narrative Levels and their Correlations with Temporal Phenomena

Hannah Schwan, University of Applied Sciences Potsdam; Janina Jacke, University of Hamburg; Rabea Kleymann, University of Hamburg; Jan-Erik Stange, ATLAS.ti; Marian Dörk, University of Applied Sciences Potsdam

Abstract [en] We present findings from interdisciplinary research at the intersection between literary studies, information visualization, and interface design. Despite a growing interest in text visualization among literary scholars, so far, narrative visualizations are not designed to support the particular tasks involved in narratological analysis and often fail to reveal nuanced narratological features. One major outcome of our iterative research and design process is Narrelations, a novel visualization technique specifically suited for analyzing and interpreting narrative levels of a story and temporal aspects of its narrative representation. The visualization provides an overview of the nesting and distribution of narrative levels, integrates the representation of temporal phenomena, and facilitates the examination of correlations between these aspects. With this research we explore how collaboratively designed visual encodings and interaction techniques may allow for an insightful analysis at a high level coupled with a close inspection of text passages. We discuss prior work relevant to our research objectives and explain the specific characteristics of narrative levels and temporal aspects of narrative representation. After describing the research process and design principles, we apply the visualization on a test corpus of eight annotated German short stories and demonstrate its heuristic value for literary analyses and interpretations. In particular, we explore the intricate connections between the literary content of the novellas and their narrative form.

Textension: Digitally Augmenting Document Spaces in Analog Texts

Adam James Bradley, Ontario Tech University; Victor Sawal, Ontario Tech University; Sheelagh Carpendale, University of Calgary; Christopher Collins, Ontario Tech University

Abstract [en]

Building the Women in Book History Bibliography, or Digital Enumerative Bibliography as Preservation of Feminist Labor.

Cait Coker, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Kate Ozment, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona

Abstract [en]

DH Moments, Caribbean Considerations: On Reaction, Response, and Relevance in the Digital Humanities

Kelly Baker Josephs, York College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Abstract [en]

[en] A Model of Versions and Layers

Desmond Schmidt, Charles Harpur Critical Archive

Abstract [en] Our libraries are full of manuscripts, many of them modern. However, the digitisation of these unique documents is currently very expensive. How can we reduce the cost of encoding them in a way that will facilitate their study, annotation, searching, sharing, editing, comparison and reading over the Web? Unlike new documents prepared for the Web, historical manuscripts frequently contain internal variation in the form of erasures, insertions, substitutions and transpositions. Variation is also often expressed externally between copies of one work: in successive print editions, in manuscript copies or successive drafts. Current practice is to prepare separate transcriptions of each physical document and to embed internal variation directly into the transcribed text using complex markup codes. This makes the transcriptions expensive to produce and hard to edit, limits text reuse and requires that transcriptions be first disentangled via customised software for reading, searching, or comparison. An alternative approach, described here, is to separate out the internal variation of each document into notional layers. This is done primarily in order to facilitate the recording of revisions at any one point. The move is, of course, counter-intuitive since these document-wide layers were not intended by the author as texts to be read. But it proves itself in practice by radically simplifying the tasks of editing, searching and comparison. Versions, on the other hand, are higher-level constructs that do represent the state of a text as it was left at some point in time by an author or scribe. By employing layers to record complex revisions, the task of computing differences among intra-document layers and against versions of the same work in multiple documents may be delegated to the machine rather than having to be recorded laboriously by hand. The ensuing simplification of markup reduces transcription and editing costs, boosts text reuse and searching, and, by removing the need for customised software, increases the longevity of digital transcriptions.

Manual Annotation of Unsupervised Models: Close and Distant Reading of Politics on Reddit

Christoph Aurnhammer, Department of Language Sciene and Technology, Saarland University; Iris Cuppen, ; Inge van de Ven, ; Menno van Zaanen, South African Centre for Digital Language Resources, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa

Abstract [en] This article offers a methodological contribution to manually-assisted topic modeling. With the availability of vast amounts of (online) texts, performing full scale literary analysis using a close reading approach is not practically feasible. The set of alternatives proposed by Franco Moretti (2000) under the umbrella term of “distant reading” aims to show broad patterns that can be found throughout the entire text collection. After a survey of literary-critical practices that combine close and distant reading methods, we use manual annotations of a thread on Reddit, both to evaluate an LDA model, and to provide information that topic modeling lacks. We also make a case for applying these reading techniques that originate in literary reading more broadly to online, non-literary contexts. Given a large collection of posts from a Reddit thread, we compare a manual, close reading analysis against an automatic, computational distant reading approach based on topic modeling using LDA. For each text in the collection, we label the contents, effectively clustering related texts. Next, we evaluate the similarity of the respective outcomes of the two approaches. Our results show that the computational content/topic-based labeling partially overlaps with the manual annotation. However, the close reading approach not only identifies texts with similar content, but also those with similar function. The differences in annotation approaches require rethinking the purpose of computational techniques in reading analysis. Thus, we present a model that could be valuable for scholars who have a small amount of manual annotation that could be used to tune an unsupervised model of a larger dataset.

Dendrography and Art History: a computer-assisted analysis of Cézanne’s Bathers.

Melinda Weinstein, Lawrence Technological University; Edward Voss, University of Iowa; David Soll, University of Iowa

Abstract [en] Using DIAS and DENDRON, computer applications designed for the study of infectious fungi and cancer cells, we forge a connection in color, composition, and theme between Paolo Veronese’s Les Noces de Cana and Paul Cézanne’s Baigneuse debout, s’essuyant les cheveux. From this connection, we bring to light a “hidden” compositional structure, heretofore unidentified, in Cézanne’s Bathers as a series. Using computer-assisted systems such as DIAS and DENDRON allowed us to detect relatedness in these paintings not necessarily visible to the human eye. With DIAS and DENDRON, we generated dendrograms that clustered paintings related in brightness, saturation, complexity, and color. After studying color, we applied DIAS to the study of Cézanne’s composition. Because Cézanne expressed Neoplatonic ideals regarding paintings in his conversations and letters, we programmed DIAS to compute axial lines and “golden sections” according to the dimensions of the square or rectangular painting under scrutiny. Using DIAS we identified the golden rectangle for Veronese’s Les Noces de Cana, Cézanne’s Baigneuse debout, s’essuyant les cheveux and Ingres’ La Source (another likely model for Baigneuse debout, s’essuyant les cheveux). From the similarities and differences between the three paintings we identified, regarding their use of axial symmetry and the golden section, we have formulated a new approach to “seeing” Cézanne’s composition in his Bather series. Cézanne’s noumenal bodies, formerly perceived as “awkward” and composed with “baffling imbalance,” we can now see as “golden.”

“These Violent Delights”: A Review of Timothy J. Welsh’s Mixed Realism: Videogames and the Violence of Fiction

Cara Marta Messina, Northeastern University

Abstract [en]

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