William Spates
William Spates received his DPhil in early modern literature from the University of Saint Andrews, Scotland, in 2005. He has taught at Auburn University, Haverford College, Eastern Mediterranean University (Famagusta, North Cyprus), and Qatar University (Doha, Qatar), and Birla Institute of Science and Technology in Goa, India. He is currently an associate professor and department chair at Georgia Military College. He has published chapters in books and essays as well as theatre and book reviews in Clio, Notes and Queries, Theatre Journal, Shakespeare Bulletin, Sixteenth Century Journal, DQR Studies in Literature, Cyprus Studies, and Ashgate’s Literary and Scientific Cultures of Early Modernity series. His recent research addresses digital humanities
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The root of Humanities Computing was computer-based textual analysis, and many would argue that this remains true of Digital Humanities as well. There is exciting recent and on-going work both here in India with projects such as the School of Cultural Texts and Records’ Bichthra at Jadavpur University under the guidance of Professor Sukanta Chaudhuri and any number of international projects including MIT’s Hyperstudio (the ever-accreting Global Shakespeare for example) or the Folger Digital Texts project. These projects involve developments that span multiple DH topics from various aspects of textual manipulation including statistical analysis, collation, and natural language processing to innovative ways of mapping and modeling data.
While there is a growing number of fascinating DH projects, there is still much to explore. One lacuna in DH research that I would like to address is computer-driven textual analysis of secondary rather than primary texts. This sort of analysis can have wide-ranging implications. Such a study can have the potential to (re)direct critical analysis.
The example of this type of analysis that I will offer explores the vast constellation of anxiety-driven readings of Shakespearean texts. By deploying JSTOR's Beta tool Data For Research (DFR), I have sought to define the relationship between “anxiety” and a number of other key terms. I have then collected a great deal of data to chart the incidence and correlation of anxiety-related criticism in Shakespeare research. I will then use these findings to analyze the influence of specific critical theories on the larger corpus of Shakespeare criticism via the relationship of anxiety in the context of different critical discourses. In doing so, I hope to demonstrate how DH textual analysis can both mediate and syncretize theoretical discourse.
The root of Humanities Computing was computer-based textual analysis, and many would argue that this remains true of Digital Humanities as well. There is exciting recent and on-going work both here in India with projects such as the School of Cultural Texts and Records’ Bichthra at Jadavpur University under the guidance of Professor Sukanta Chaudhuri and any number of international projects including MIT’s Hyperstudio (the ever-accreting Global Shakespeare for example) or the Folger Digital Texts project. These projects involve developments that span multiple DH topics from various aspects of textual manipulation including statistical analysis, collation, and natural language processing to innovative ways of mapping and modeling data.
While there is a growing number of fascinating DH projects, there is still much to explore. One lacuna in DH research that I would like to address is computer-driven textual analysis of secondary rather than primary texts. This sort of analysis can have wide-ranging implications. Such a study can have the potential to (re)direct critical analysis.
The example of this type of analysis that I will offer explores the vast constellation of anxiety-driven readings of Shakespearean texts. By deploying JSTOR's Beta tool Data For Research (DFR), I have sought to define the relationship between “anxiety” and a number of other key terms. I have then collected a great deal of data to chart the incidence and correlation of anxiety-related criticism in Shakespeare research. I will then use these findings to analyze the influence of specific critical theories on the larger corpus of Shakespeare criticism via the relationship of anxiety in the context of different critical discourses. In doing so, I hope to demonstrate how DH textual analysis can both mediate and syncretize theoretical discourse.