Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 38, No. 459.
        Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
                      Hosted by DH-Cologne
                       www.dhhumanist.org
                Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org




        Date: 2025-04-12 21:20:38+00:00
        From: Dr. Herbert Wender <drwender@aol.com>
        Subject: Re: [Humanist] Re (McGann): preparatory reading on digital text

Willard,
in response to the debate on "pinborard" vs. "Discussion Group" I wood like to
ask if a relation of 1 question : 1 answer can really be seen as sufficiently
answered with respect to such a basic question as "the question of what digital
text is" (Claire Warwick). That Jerome McGann pointed back " at IATH some 30
years ago" seems to indicate a certain frustration about answering an very old
question again and again. I remember a blog post in the german speaking DH
community 13 years ago titled:
"Mal wieder und immer noch: Digitized vs. Digital"
and beginning:
NeDiMAH, das „Network for DigitalMethods in the Arts and Humanities“ enthält
unter anderen eineArbeitsgruppe zu „Scholarly Digital Editions“. Die
ersteVeranstaltung (ein „Expert Meeting and Workshop“) zu diesemThemenkomplex
hatte laut Call einen Schwerpunkt in derdefinitorischen Grundfrage: Was ist
eigentlich eine „digitaleEdition“?

[https://dhd-blog.org/?p=1122]

Patrick Sahle's few lines are IMHO a good starting point to discuss the
differences between digitized texts and digital editions. What not shuould be
neglected in such a introductory setting: the intrinsic danger behind the
'functional surplus' ("funktionaler Mehrwert") because of unseen coding errors
resulting from badly programmed search routines or falsely encoded textual
features.
Herbert
   ----- Weitergeleitete Nachricht -----
        Date: 2025-04-04 10:17:10+00:00
        From: Mcgann, Jerome (jjm2f) <jjm2f@virginia.edu>
        Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.438: preparatory reading on digital text?

When we at IATH some 30 years ago thought about posing a similar question, this
is what we came up with:

In the Oxford English Dictionary, how many times is [ X ] cited as an historical
source for the definition of a word?

Even in the period of AI,  that still seems to me a question with rich and far-
reaching implications.

Jerry

From: Humanist <humanist@dhhumanist.org>
Date: Friday, April 4, 2025 at 3:32 AM
To: Mcgann, Jerome (jjm2f) <jjm2f@virginia.edu>
Subject: [Humanist] 38.438: preparatory reading on digital text?

              Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 38, No. 438.
        Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
                      Hosted by DH-Cologne
                      www.dhhumanist.org<http://www.dhhumanist.org>
                Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org




        Date: 2025-04-03 10:17:27+00:00
        From: WARWICK, CLAIRE <c.l.h.warwick@durham.ac.uk>
        Subject: Very introductory DH teaching

Dear colleagues,

I have what might seem a slightly strange question. What would you set as
preparatory reading for a class of first year English students to introduce them
to the question of what digital text is, and how it can be used differently from
printed resources?

I ask because we are starting a new compulsory first year module called
Approaches to Literary Studies, which is intended to provide a bridge between
learning at school and at university.  Within this, I am teaching a session on
the basics of digital text/hypertext and how it can best be used by students of
literary studies.

The module is very broad in scope, as an introduction to the English Studies and
the methods and tools we use and DH is included in this. This is great, in the
sense that DH is being presented to our new students as a core part of English
Studies (later in the year they will get another introductory session on distant
reading too).

However, I’ve never taught anything at quite such an introductory level, so
while I know of many excellent materials on text analysis/encoding/mining, most
of them are aimed at graduate level or above. Also, these students may have very
little background in maths or science (subjects which most UK arts
undergraduates give up at age 16) and many of them are actively antagonistic to
anything mathematical. So, anything too technical risks alienating them.

But introductory reading is required for every session, and I am really not sure
what to set them. Any suggestions would be most gratefully received.

Best wishes,

Claire

--------
Claire Warwick MA, MPhil, PhD
Professor of Digital Humanities
Co-Director Durham Institute of Data Science
Department of English Studies
Durham University
www.durham.ac.uk/staff/c-l-h-warwick/


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