Digital Humanities and E research

Lo studioso di discipline umanistiche oggi non può più prescindere dalla conoscenza e dall’utilizzazione degli strumenti e delle risorse messe a disposizione dalle Scienze dell’Informazione. Ma per poter condurre le sue indagini scientifiche in ambiente digitale, l’umanista deve conoscere bene, anche dal punto di vista storico e teorico, poteri e limiti degli strumenti e delle risorse informatiche. Attraverso la lettura di questo manuale, egli sarà in grado di rispondere ad alcuni quesiti fondamentali: che cos’è l’Informatica umanistica, che cos’è internet e che cos’è il web, quali sono i linguaggi utilizzati nel web, che cos’è un ipertesto e che cos’è l’ipermedialità, come si svolge la codifica e la rappresentazione dell’informazione, che cosa sono e come si sono sviluppati i motori di ricerca nel web, che cosa sono e come funzionano i cataloghi, gli archivi e le library digitali, quali sono i sistemi di ricerca bibliografica avanzata, come si svolge la ricerca umanistica in rete e, soprattutto, quali sono le fonti scientifiche in ambiente digitale. Il fine ultimo del volume è dunque fornire allo studente e allo studioso di discipline umanistiche gli strumenti e il metodo di ricerca necessari per l’indagine scientifica in ambiente digitale, e contribuire così a trasformare l’umanista in umanista informatico.

Academic Reference:

Zuckermann, Ghil'ad & Monaghan, Paul (2012). "Revival linguistics and the new media: Talknology in the service of the Barngarla language reclamation", pp. 119-126 of Foundation for Endangered Languages XVI Conference: Language Endangerment in the 21st Century:Globalisation, Technology & New Media. Auckland, New Zealand.

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Revival Linguistics and the New Media:
Talknology in the service of the Barngarla Language Reclamation


Ghil‘ad Zuckermann

Chair of Linguistics and Endangered Languages
School of Humanities, University of Adelaide, SA Adelaide 5005, Australia
[ghilad.zuckermann@adelaide.edu.au]


Paul Monaghan

Mobile Language Team
School of Humanities, University of Adelaide, SA Adelaide 5005, Australia
[paul.monaghan@adelaide.edu.au]


Abstract

Revival Linguistics is a new branch of linguistics, currently being established at Adelaide. It analyses comparatively and systematically the universal constraints and global mechanisms on the one hand (see Zuckermann 2009), and local peculiarities on the other hand, apparent in revival attempts across various sociological backgrounds, all over the world (see Zuckermann & Walsh 2011). A branch of both linguistics and applied linguistics, it combines scientific studies of native language acquisition and foreign language learning (language reclamation is the most extreme case of Second Language Learning).

The study: The Barngarla language (spelled Parnkalla by Schürmann 1844) is a no-longer spoken Thura-Yura Pama-Nyungan Aboriginal language of the Lakes Cultural Region of South Australia. Most recently Zuckermann, Monaghan and the Barngarla community have launched a reclamation of this sleeping beauty in three major rural/urban centres on the Eyre Peninsula, namely Port Lincoln, Whyalla, and Port Augusta. The presence of three Barngarla populations several hours drive apart presents the revival linguist with a need for a sophisticated reclamation involving ‘talknological’ innovations, such as online chatting, newsgroups, photo and resource sharing through a Barngarla wiki. This paper also examines the tensions accompanying the creation of a Barngarla ‘community of practice’ (cf. Wenger 1998) in a post-traditional Aboriginal context. In important ways, the new talknology poses a direct challenge to existing authority structures relating to the everyday management of knowledge, collaboration and participation. We predict that how the broader Barngarla community negotiates these issues will have an important bearing on the ultimate results of the reclamation project.




Revival Linguistics

Revival Linguistics is a new branch of linguistics, currently being established at Adelaide. It analyses comparatively and systematically the universal constraints and global mechanisms on the one hand (see Zuckermann 2009), and local peculiarities and idiosyncrasies on the other hand, apparent in revival attempts across various sociological backgrounds, all over the world (Zuckermann & Walsh 2011). A branch of both linguistics and applied linguistics, it combines scientific studies of native language acquisition and foreign language learning (language reclamation is the most extreme case of Second Language Learning).

Revival Linguistics complements the established field of documentary linguistics, which records endangered languages before they fall asleep. Revival Linguistics ought to revise the fields of grammaticography (writing grammars) and lexicography (writing dictionaries): Grammars and dictionaries ought to be written for language reclamation, i.e. in a user-friendly way, for communities, not only for linguists. For example, juxtapose Lutheran missionary Clamor Wilhelm Schürmann’s 1844 spelling of the Barngarla word nunyara ‘recovery’, which ignores the English environment, thus resulting in the pronunciation nanYAra rather than NOONyara.

Closely related to contact linguistics, Revival Linguistics changes the field of historical linguistics, e.g. by weakening the Family Tree model, which implies that a language ought to have only one parent. Assisting Aboriginal communities in a realistic, non-purisitic way, without selling them myths, Revival Linguistics promotes efficiency and efficacy in language reclamation.

Certainly Australia has been made the ‘Unlucky Country’ through the historical processes of linguicide (language killing) and glottophagy (language eating). These twin forces were in operation from the early colonial period. In her detailed study of the role missionary language practices in the early years of the South Australian colony, Scrimgeour quotes the following colonial language ideology: ‘Mr Forster afterwards adverted to the present mode of teaching the children in their own language. He, with all respect to the Missionaries, would say, on several grounds, that this was wrong. The natives would be sooner civilized if their language was extinct. The children taught would afterwards mix only with whites, where their own language would be of no use – the use of their language would preserve their prejudices and debasement, and their language was not sufficient to express the ideas of civilized life.  He gave the Missionaries full credit for their talents and zeal, but he thought it would be better to teach the children in English’ (from Report on a public meeting of the South Australian Missionary Society in aid of the German Mission to the Aborigines, Southern Australian, 8 September 1843; Scrimgeour, 2007: 116, italics added).

In the case of glottophagy, Governor George Grey noted: ‘The merchant in London who lays on a vessel for a certain port, regards the affair as a mere mercantile speculation, but could he trace out the results he effects in their remotest ramifications, he would stand astonished at the changes he produces.  With the wizard wand of commerce, he touches a lone and trackless forest, and at his bidding, cities arise, and the hum and dust of trade collect – away are swept ancient races; antique laws and customs moulder into oblivion.  The strong-holds of murder and superstition are cleansed, and the Gospel is preached amongst ignorant and savage men. The ruder languages disappear successively, and the tongue of England alone is heard around’ (Grey 1841: 200-201, italics added). Grey was a strong supporter of Aboriginal languages, encouraging Schürmann’s work documenting the Adelaide language (Kaurna) and Barngarla at Port Lincoln (see below).

With globalization, homogenization and Coca-colonization there will be more and more groups all over the world added to the forlorn club of the lost-heritage peoples. Language reclamation will become increasingly relevant as people seek to recover their cultural autonomy, empower their spiritual and intellectual sovereignty, and improve their wellbeing. There are various ethical, aesthetic and utilitarian benefits of language revival: for example, social justice, diversity and employability, respectively.

Zuckermann (2012) has enthusiastically called for Native Tongue Title and linguistic human rights, suggesting that the Australian government ought to compensate Indigenous people not only for the loss of land but equally importantly for the loss of language. Zuckermann has suggested to the Australian government to define Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander vernaculars as official languages.

Furthermore, it is predicted that in the future the very insights offered by Revival Linguistics will themselves become part of Indigenous Intellectual Property, when Slovenes and Estonians come to Australia and New Zealand to ask Aboriginal Australians and Maori to assist them in their own European language resurrection.

There is an urgent need to produce perspicacious LINGUISTIC and socio-linguistic insights relevant to language reclamation. Otherwise, linguists or language workers would not be able to offer, if asked by Indigenous people, efficient and efficacious advice. There are linguistic constraints applicable to all revival attempts. Mastering them would help revivalists and First Nations leaders to work more efficiently; for example, to focus more on basic vocabulary and verbal conjugations than on sounds and word order – see Zuckermann (2009: http://www.zuckermann.org/pdf/Hybridity_versus_Revivability.pdf.

Revival linguistics would assist revivalists to be more realistic and to abandon discouraging slogans such as "Give us authenticity or give us death!" The following are among the basic principles that the revival linguist encourages in Aboriginal communities:

i. If your language falls asleep: stop, revive, survive!
ii. If you revive a language, embrace the hybridity of the emerging tongue; and
iii. If your language is healthy, assist others in linguistic need.

One day we may invent devices to “inject” a language into our brains. But until then, any attempt to reclaim a hibernating language will result in a hybrid that combines components from the revivalists' and documenters' mother tongues and, of course, the target language. In the immortal words of Jerry Seinfeld: "Not that there's anything wrong with that!"

The Study


Figure 1: Map of Traditional Aboriginal Country after Norman Tindale (adapted from Hercus 1999)

The Barngarla language reclamation project has arisen through partnerships between the University of Adelaide (Linguistics and the Mobile Language Team) and the Barngarla people. Although still in its infancy, consultations began in September 2011, a number of very significant steps have been made towards reclaiming this ‘sleeping beauty’. Without doubt, the key challenge has been to develop a strategy for the reclamation of the language simultaneously and without favour in three major regional centres. In ways that will be elaborated below, this multi-sited, regional or peripheral reclamation makes demands that are very different to those often found in metropolitan reclamation contexts (e.g. Kaurna, cf. Amery...

Instafame is a pioneering study of the impact of social media and digital culture on graffiti and street art. Using 23 million pieces of publicly available data from Instagram, it paints a picture of the global networks of attention and taste that underpin contemporary graffiti and street art.

In this study, I extended input methods for the Japanese language to Egyptian hieroglyphics. There are several systems that capable of inputting Egyptian hieroglyphic writing. However, they do not allow us to directly input hieroglyphs, for instance, into MS Word. The new Egyptian hieroglyphic input system being reported here, developed using technology used for inputting Japanese writing, is quite unique and allows the direct input of hieroglyphs, for example, into MS Word. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and the Japanese writing system (with its mixture of hiragana, katakana and kanji) share basic graphemic characteristics. For instance, Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic logograms are functionally similar to Japanese kanji logograms (Chinese characters), whereas Egyptian hieroglyphic phonograms are functionally similar to Japanese hiragana and katakana syllabic phonograms. The input technology for Japanese makes it possible to input a mixture of logograms and phonograms, and phonetic complements. This technology is a well-organized and handy tool to input Japanese writing into computers, having been used by over 100 million people. I applied this technology to Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic inputting and created a new intuitive hieroglyphic inputting system using Google Japanese Input. Using this method, anyone can directly write Egyptian hieroglyphic writing into software like MS Word. If the transcription of an ancient Egyptian word is entered, the correct hieroglyphs are generated by this system. If there are multiple options for any phonemic combinations that use other combinations of phonetic complements or determinatives, a dropdown window with a list of several combinations of glyphs appears and the user can choose the desired combination.

Abstract.
The interlink between the determination of the circumference of the Earth and the geographical mapping performed by Ptolemy in his Geography (c. 150 AD) is discussed. As Ptolemy himself stated, he used the value of 180,000 stades for the circumference of the Earth which is in stark contrast to the famous result of Eratosthenes, i.e. 252,000 stades. Many scholars see these different values as a result of the diverse definitions of a stade used by both ancient authors. Such a view cannot, nevertheless, explain the excessive distortion of Ptolemy's world map along the east-west direction. We have treated the problem with the methods of spherical trigonometry and have shown that many features of Ptolemy’s map can be easily explained and corrected under the presupposition that the length of the stade used by Ptolemy coincides with that of Eratosthenes. The latitudinal distortion in Ptolemaic map is caused by his underestimating of the size of the Earth in combination with his efforts to keep the known latitudes of the localities. Another mathematical consequence is a significant displacement of the localities lying approximately on the same meridian (so-called antikemenoi poleis), as in the case Carthage in relation to Rome. It is shown that a simple transformation of the Ptolemaic coordinates to the circumference of the Earth measured by Eratosthenes drastically improves the positions of the locations given in Ptolemy´s catalogue. The comparison of the recalculated positions of the identified localities with their actual positions confirmed a very high precision of Eratosthenes' result for the circumference of the Earth.

Zusammenfassung
Untersucht wird der Zusammenhang zwischen der Bestimmung des Erdumfangs und dem kartographischen Verfahren, das Ptolemaios in seiner Geographie (ca. 150 n. Chr.) anwendet. Wie Ptolemaios selbst behauptet, verwendet er statt des Resultats der berühmten Erd-umfangsmessung des Eratosthenes (252 000 Stadien) den Wert von 180 000 Stadien für die Erdgröße. Die meisten Forscher heute führen diesen Unter-schied auf unterschiedliche Stadien-Längen zurück. Eine solche Ansicht kann aber z. B. nicht die starke Ost-West-Überdehnung der Oikumene erklären, wie sie aus der Erdkarte des Ptolemaios bekannt ist. Wir haben daher dieses Problem mit den Methoden der Sphärischen Trigonometrie behandelt und können nun zeigen, dass sich viele Verzerrungen leicht erklären und korrigieren lassen, wenn wir annehmen, dass das Ptolemäische Stadion mit dem des Eratosthenes identisch ist. Vielmehr wird die Über-dehnung der Oikumene durch den zu geringen Erdumfang bei Ptolemaios in Verbindung mit seinem Bestreben, die überlieferten Breitenangaben für bekann¬te Orte zu bewahren, verursacht. Eine andere mathematische Konsequenz ist die signifikante Verlagerung von Orten, die auf dem gleichen Meridian liegen (so genannte antikemenoi poleis), wie die von Karthago gegenüber Rom. Wir können nachweisen, dass durch eine Rekalkulation der Ptolemaischen Koordinaten in Bezug auf die “richtige” Erdgröße des Eratosthenes die Positionen der Orte in seinem Katalog dramatisch verbessert werden. Ein Vergleich zwischen den rekalkulierten und modernen Koordinaten bestätigt außerdem die Genauigkeit der Eratosthenischen Erdmessung.

In this paper the thesis is submitted that the study of China (indeed of each and every country) is wrongheaded in its methodology and should be fundamentally redesigned. Readers are kindly requested to notice that the author distinguishes between two kinds of 'China experts': 1) Those (tacitly) claiming to be knowledgeable about everything related to China, a - thank God - dying but by no means extinct breed of scholars mainly active in Europe; and 2) Those not CLAIMING to be China experts (that is, those eventually admitting not to be scientific all-rounders with respect to the country) but - and herein lies the crux of the matter -  not shying away from entering, without announcement or permission, a domain outside their own field of expertise, SHOULD THEY HAVE ONE! Many American and other 'China experts' can be blamed for this. 'China expert' is a misnomer, grossly (and dangerously) misleading politicians, captains of industry and the general public, as the author argues at length in the paper, which sums up a great deal of his research over the last few years. Scientists (e.g. demographers, economists, sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, jurists, linguists, literary theorists/critics and 'Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaftler') may have research interest in a particular, their discipline related aspect of China; they can never be justifiably called 'China experts'. Throughout the article, particularly in the text under the subheading Scientific Collaboration, the necessity (and possibility!) of academic teamwork is emphasised, that is to say, the need for interdisciplinary (as distinct from multidisciplinary) research of China. The political, legal, military, economic, financial, social, educational, ecological, religious and other kindred affairs of China are inextricably intertwined, forming together a complex system of complex systems. Consequently, the country should be studied (as it has never been done!) by specialists closely working together and being aware of the historical as well as the geographical dimension of their 'material objects' (explananda). Briefly, the paper pleads for gaining EMPIRICALLY AND THEORETICALLY BASED knowledge of CHINA AS SUCH.

A space generally associated with marketers and breaking news (Hobsbawn, 2009 cited in Evans, Twomey
& Talan, 2011), Twitter has also become a space debate, community building and legitimization for companies
and social movements alike. The academic literature has seen a rise in interest in the micro-blogging
platform. For instance, Adi and Moloney (2012) assess the strategic uses of Twitter by protest groups, Adi, Erickson
and Lilleker (2014) reflect on the networks and use pattern of the same platform by politicians, namely
UK Labor party representatives in the House of Lords while Adi and Grigore (2015) analyze the strategic
uses of social media by corporations. Bajpai and Jaiswal (2011) on the other hand propose a framework for analyzing
collective action events on Twitter and so do the creators behind visual analysis platforms like NodeXL,
Gephi, Linkurious and Socioviz. Public Relations research too has provided several reflections and analyses of
Twitter. Verhoeven et al (2012) and Sweetsner and Kelleher discuss how practitioners use social media; Lovejoy,
Waters and Saxton evaluate how NGO are engaging stakeholders though the new medium, while Saffer,
Sommerfeldt and Taylor (2013) suggest that Twitter interactivity influences the quality of organization–public
relationships. With questions about the professionalization of Public Relations as well as about the portrayals
and perceptions of the profession continuing to intrigue researchers, it is surprising that only Xifra and Grau
(2010) looked into the type of information shared in tweets about public relations. Using the Twitter data collection
and analysis option from Socioviz this paper provides an exploratory account of the #publicrelations on
Twitter. Using the visualizations provided by the platform and automated data analysis to gain insight into over
10,000 tweets published during June 15-24 and July 15-24, this paper qualitatively assesses the emerging themes
about public relations focusing on association of hashtags and type of messages shared and identifies the most
active and most influential users within the issue topic. The paper reveals that the #publicrelations is often associated
with #jobs or is hijacked and associated with tags such as #gossip or #entertainment. The paper also
shows that conversation in the #publicrelations issue network is limited and that the hashtag only partially includes
content relevant to the practice. In doing so the paper raises important questions about the nature of dialogue
and symmetry on social media and their assessment and suggests that further research should explore
twitter chats as well as continue to apply similar data collection methods as used for the study.

The George Eliot Archive <https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org> is an extensive resource for anyone studying the author best known as George Eliot (born Mary Ann Evans), one of the most highly acclaimed novelists in Western literature. The Archive provides free online access to all of Eliot's writings: the standard "Cabinet Edition" of the novels and short stories, her complete poetry, her translations, and her non-fiction essays (a more complete compilation than any printed collection). We offer the complete searchable text of 894 letters, and over 2,000 documents related to the author—hundreds of them never before collected in print or digital form. Interactive data visualization tools such as a 60,000-word detailed sortable chronology, a personography, and interactive maps of Eliot's travels help scholars discover new aspects of Eliot’s biography. 

Our long-term goal is to provide access to all of Eliot’s incoming and outgoing correspondence as well. Please check back frequently for updates as this first single-author scholarly website on George Eliot continues to develop as the primary online site for Eliot scholarship.

The Archive’s sister site, the George Eliot Review Online <https://georgeeliotreview.org>, makes all issues of the George Eliot Review journal from its inception in 1970 freely accessible on the internet for the first time. This digital project, launched in December 2017, has been made possible in partnership with the journal’s publishers, the George Eliot Fellowship.

For updates on all George Eliot social events, including lectures, conferences, tours of "George Eliot Country", wreath-laying, memorial tending, preservation plans for Bird Grove and the Visitors' Center at Griff, souvenirs, and much more, please see visit the George Eliot Fellowship's website <https://GeorgeEliot.org>.

Our two digital projects, the George Eliot Archive and the George Eliot Review Online were peer-reviewed and accredited with no suggested revisions by the Networked Infrastructure for Nineteenth-Century Electronic Scholarship (NINES) and the Advanced Research Consortium (ARC) in November 2019 and were highly recommended in the January 2020 issue of Reviews in Digital Humanities. The projects have been featured on local NET (NPR) radio and endorsed on the websites of the George Eliot Fellowship and the Victorian Web. We are currently collaborating with the North American Victorian Studies Association’s Central Online Victorian Educator (COVE) to share resources and content

The George Eliot Archive and George Eliot Review Online have been developed by Dr. Beverley Rilett and her small but mighty team of research assistants at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The following review explores Intercultural Information Ethics (IIE) in terms of comparative philosophy, supporting IIE as the most relevant and significant development of the field of Information Ethics (IE). The focus of the review is threefold. First, it will review the core presumption of the field of IIE, that being the demand for an inter- mission in the pursuit of a founding philosophy for IE in order to first address the philosophical biases of IE by western philosophy. Second, a history of the various philosophical streams of IIE will be outlined, including its literature and pioneering contributors. Lastly, a new synthesis of comparative philosophies in IIE will be offered, looking towards a future evolution of the field. Examining the interchange between contemporary information ethicists regarding the discipline of IIE, the review first outlines the previously established presumptions of the field of IIE that posit the need for an IE as grounded in western sensibilities. The author then addresses the implications of the foregoing presumption from several non-western viewpoints, arguing that IIE does in fact find roots in non-western philosophies as established in the concluding synthesis of western and eastern philosophical traditions.

Sono pagine estratte da "La scrittura e il mondo" (Brugnolo, Colussi, Zatti, Zinato) in cui esamino le proposte di Moretti realtive alla critica del close reading e alla sua proposta di inaugurare una lettura da lontano dei testi avvalendosi anche delle digital humanities. Senza contestare la legittimità e l'interesse di questi studi qui si sostiene l'imprescindilità dell'analisi testuale.

(1) This semester-long project requires each student to write one entry that will be compiled with their classmates’ entries into an argumentative dictionary and published as an eBook. By “argumentative dictionary,” I mean a book that defines terms, and argues about how they rhetorically function. (2) By writing argumentative dictionary entries that include definitions, historical contextualization, and mini rhetorical analyses, students will learn the fundamentals of rhetorical studies, including the rhetoric of definitions, persuasive writing, argumentation, rhetorical criticism, and discourse analysis, as well as ePublishing. (3) Learning how to write for a public, open-access audience is emphasized.

Pierre Bayle's Dictionnaire Historique et Critique, a landmark in intellectual history, is a curious text. Originally intended as a collection of all errors, it became an encyclopedia of everything, enfolding rampantly growing footnotes that commented on every imaginable topic. Instead of looking at Bayle's theoretical statements in the Dictionnaire, I explore Bayle's writing practice, his critical method and his practice of forming judgments. A close study of the textual, paratextual and contextual characteristics of the first entry of the Dictionnaire (the entry "Abaris") allows me to find out how Bayle made up his mind at every stage during a contemporaneous controversy on divination. In this way, we are able to see Bayle's mind in action while he is judging the contradictory information he receives and the to-and-fro movement of changing opinions he is confronted with. Th is examination yields new insights to Bayle's practical attitudes towards key issues in his oeuvre, including scepticism, rationalism, superstition and tolerance. At the same time, the article clarifies how Bayle was involved in the Republic of Letters and how he related to his local context in Rotterdam.

Chapters fifty-one through fifty-three of part two of _Don Quijote_ conclude Sancho’s rule over Barataria, i.e., the climax of the novel’s political allegory. Note that the novel is decidedly epistolary here. Cervantes was clearly meditating on politics circa 1614, and this meant the Morisco Question.

The novel the two gentlemen are reading is Avellaneda’s apocryphal continuation of 1614, which makes this an amazing moment in _Don Quijote_ as well as the entire history of the novel form. One of the two men actually places the book in Don Quijote’s hands. We have read about characters who have read part one, but this is the first time that characters have read the other part two.

The paper present a framework for distinguishing different sorts of heterogeneous digital materials. The hypothesis is that hypertextual linking is both a major source of the messy-ness of big data and a means to characterize and classify non-parametric data resources. Thus the notion of hypertext is revalidated and utilized in the analysis of heterogeneous digital collections.

ERRATA :
Le passage : « Wer im Miteinanderreden schweigt, kann eigentlicher „zu verstehen geben“, das heißt das Verständnis ausbilden, als der, dem das Wort nicht ausgeht. » (SuZ, § 34, p. 164) se traduit par « Qui se tait dans la discussion en commun peut « donner à comprendre », c’est à dire former la compréhension, plus authentiquement que celui qui ne cesse de parler. » (conformémement à ce qu'on attend), et non par « de qui ne sort aucune parole », comme il est écrit. Lapsus calami ? Je vous laisse le soin d'interpréter.

Article publié dans les Études romanes de Brno, volume 35, issue 1, 2014 :
http://digilib.phil.muni.cz/handle/11222.digilib/130367
En anglais : “The many lives of Dasein: Towards a philological approach to the Heideggerian corpus by digital means” in The Future of Philology, ed. Hannes Bajohr et al. Cambridge, CSP, 2014, p. 194 sq.

Chapter forty-eight of part two of _Don Quijote_ relates an absurd, but intense, nocturnal encounter between two of the novel’s oldest characters: Don Quijote and Doña Rodríguez. As in the Sierra Morena of part one, women’s actions and desires predominate in Aragón, serving as preludes to the roles of Teresa, Altisidora, Ana Félix, and Claudia Jerónima. On another level, the chaos that ensues and hints of an ethnic clash between Christians and Moors recall Don Quijote’s violent encounter with Maritornes in part one.

Globalization via the digital age is upon us, demanding a new ethics and an intercultural awareness while the dialectics of globalism and cyberspace mandate a committed reflection on what the synthesis between the digital realm and global citizenship entails. In many ways, the borders that previously separated us as citizens physically and culturally have begun to dissipate, replaced by a call for an intercultural accountability and a form of global citizenship that, on one hand, surpasses borders, patriotism, and nationalism alike, but while on the other, demands an understanding and respect for the cultural idiosyncrasies among us, acknowledging the unique existential paradox of universal citizenship that posits each of us as both stranger and citizen on a commonly shared globe.

What is cosmopolitan in the digital age? Is a global digital citizen the same as merely a digital citizen? While talk of digital citizenship has increased in recent years, usually centered on a capitalist drive, encouraging a full electronic participation in society and a responsibility to digital commerce, many questions remain unanswered.  Is the netizen the citizen of a democratic state, and of digital democracy? As a citizen of the world interacting online, how will one’s “rights” and “duties” be determined? And are these “rights” universal, and in such a case, what does “universal” mean? What are the legal parameters of netizenship, and what will they be as globalization further takes hold? Is democracy critical to citizenship, or is it not? What are the political landscapes of global citizenship in the digital age? And last of all, is the concept of digital citizenship even tangible? Is it real?

Dates and times and places are daisy chain links for the accountants at Armageddon, and detective story tellers. For the rest of us, life is a more approximate affair, full of sudden holes in memory and meaning.

The act of recalling faint echoes into ink is a shameless deception on the self. Yet I crave this spurious integration of a created past. Is that so unusual? The tale is written in a kind of rough prose-poetry. It has a voice. Rake it around the tongue, but like any spice from faraway places, taste only a pinch at a time. 

About and about whom truth stands: this is an autobiography, a file of personal memorabilia. All persons, objects and events are real. It is a reality however which lives in the writer's own exotic brain. Aggrieved spirits and beings with any sense will say that it's all lies. These lines are irresponsible to every purpose, excepting only the pleasure found in language.

The Kingdom of Sicily Image Database uses new media technologies to reframe our understanding of medieval Europe by focusing on the role of the built environment for the formation of state identity in the medieval Kingdom of Sicily ruled by Norman, Swabian, Angevin and Aragonese dynasties (950-1420). The theme is important for two reasons: the significance of South Italy as a prototype of multicultural state formation and the highly fragmentary (war bombardment, earthquakes, urban transformation) state of the sites that played a central role in the power structures of this new state. A comprehensive database of historical images of monuments and cities (prints, drawings, maps, photographs, etc.) made by scholars, artists and travellers from the 15th to the 20th centuries, can enable scholars and the public to recover the appearance of the landscape, of cities, and of individual monuments prior to radical renovations or destructions. An interdisciplinary research team is conducting a...

Jak komunikować dane? O konieczności edukacji w zakresie technik wizualizacyjnych na gruncie humanistyki jako ważnej kompetencji kulturowej Komunikacja zawsze odgrywała ważną rolę w rozwoju ludzkiej kultury/ur (cywilizacji) w różnych okresach historii. Wykształcenie się mowy, wynalezienie pisma, alfabetu czy druku, jak chociażby ostatnio przypomniał to Harrari (2011, s.155) w swej monumentalnej big history doprowadzało do fundamentalnych zmian w życiu poszczególnych ludzkich społeczeństw i stało się jednym z najistotniejszych przyczyn zdobycia prze homo sapiens ogromnej przewagi nad innymi gatunkami zamieszkującymi Ziemię. W ostatnich kilkudziesięciu latach jesteśmy świadkami rewolucji informatycznej, która radykalnie zmieniła praktycznie wszystkie ludzkie praktyki. Jej efektem jest min. ogromny, bezprecedensowy, przyrost informacji. W związku z tym mówi się o nastaniu epoki Informacjonalizmu i społeczeństwa informacyjnego. Jak każda tego typu rewolucja, Informacjonalizm powołał do życia nowe praktyki, nową gospodarkę, nowe zawody i oczywiście nową kulturę (cyfrową, 2.0, informacyjną, żeby poprzestać na tych najczęściej przytaczanych określeniach). Rewolucja informatyczna przyniosła też fundamentalne zmiany w komunikacji międzyludzkiej. Za sprawą komputerów, internetu czy różnych urządzeń mobilnych inaczej organizujemy działania komunikacyjne. Tworzymy też innego rodzaju komunikaty. Przedmiotem niniejszej wypowiedzi uczyniłem wizualizację jako, jak chciałbym argumentować, jedną z kluczowych kompetencji współczesnego człowieka-chcącego partycypować w kulturowych praktykach społeczeństwa informacyjnego. Wdrażanie do partycypacji w danym typie kultury odbywa się także na gruncie działań edukacyjnych (począwszy od szkolnictwa podstawowego, a skończywszy na szkolnictwie wyższym). Za przedmiot obserwacji obrałem humanistykę. Powodów tej decyzji jest kilka: a) jej rola jest często kwestionowana w erze informacjonalizmu, b) obraca się ona nadal wokół tzw. kultury

..this truly was the abrupt partition of worlds. South, somewhere over those unthinkable mountains was the steaming monsoon world of South Asia with its tropical profusion and teeming millions. From here to an unmeasured bleak north you would find only scattered remnants of humanity, or life of any kind. A harsh world of fierce pride and careful conservation, where precious water came from dark places deep in the earth...

The art and architecture of South Italy is an important cultural and artistic patrimony that has often been damaged or destroyed by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and WWII bombardment. This database, imminently online, is a compendium of historic images of sites and cities from Grand Tour travelers, architects, photographers, and other sources that are now scattered through museums, archives and libraries in Europe and the United States. Initial funding for this project was with a Collaborative Research Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Abstract: In this article, we try to gather some of the ideas exposed in the communication presented to the Jornadas sobre estudio y gestión del Patrimonio Cultural, held in Logroño, (24 - 26 of November of 2005).
The above mentioned paper had two different but linked parts. In the first one we approached to a sequence of concepts on the Cultural Heritage and the role of the New Technologies; its nature, its use and abuse, its limits, etc. In the second one we offered a selection of useful high quality resources on line for researches.

Key words: New Technologies, Internet, Cultural Heritage, Archaeological Patrimony, research, high quality resources.
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Resumen: En esta colaboración se pretenden recoger algunas de las ideas expuestas en la ponencia de las Jornadas sobre estudio y gestión del Patrimonio Cultural, celebradas en Logroño, del 24 al 26 de Noviembre de 2005.
Dicha ponencia-práctica constó de dos partes diferenciadas pero intrínsicamente vinculadas. En la primera de ellas se abordaron una serie de conceptos que nos condujeron a unas reflexiones sobre el Patrimonio Cultural y el papel de las Nuevas Tecnologías; su naturaleza, su uso y abuso, sus límites, etc. Una vez visto esto afrontamos la segunda parte, es decir, la consulta directa de una selección de recursos de alta calidad científica que pueden ser útiles en nuestra tarea cotidiana de investigación.

Palabras clave: Nuevas Tecnologías, Internet, Patrimonio Cultural, Patrimonio Arqueológico, investigación, recursos de alta calidad científica.

Digital | Humanities im Gespräch #1: "Digitale Verflechtungen: Bibliographien und Biogramme"
— Vortrag am 8. November 2018 um 14:00 Uhr
Seminarzentrum der Freien Universität Berlin (Raum L 115)

Das Centrum Modernes Griechenland der Freien Universität Berlin versteht sich als Knotenpunkt für die Vernetzung der deutsch-griechischen Forschung. Mit der CeMoG-Wissensbasis, die demnächst unter dem Einsatz des Open Encyclopedia System (OES) online gehen wird, wird Forscher/innen, Studierenden und allgemein Interessierten zum ersten Mal ein Instrument an die Hand gegeben, das den Facettenreichtum der deutsch-griechischen Beziehungen seit dem 18. Jhdt. dokumentiert und die wissenschaftliche Erforschung ihrer Geschichte(n) unterstützt. Der Vortrag geht auf die informationstechnische Konzeption und Umsetzung dieses Repositoriums für bibliographische und prosopographische Angaben ein, worauf weitere digitale Publikationen, wie z.B. das Online-Kompendium der deutsch-griechischen Verflechtungen, aufbauen werden.

[ITA] Che cosa ci vuole per cambiare? La mission di Ars Electronica di quest'anno è stata quella di trovare qualche risposta a una nuova fase di cambiamento.

[ENG] What it takes to change? The mission of Ars Electronica was to discover what leads change and to call for answers from different directions and disciplines.

In this paper I argue that some of the computational methods and tools adopted by the CMN (Computational Models of Narrative) community can be beneficial for the scholars working in the area of Digital Humanities (in general) and, in particular, for those interested in Literary Criticisms studies. With this goal in mind, I will provide some examples of the methods and techniques coming from CMN and Artificial Intelligence that have been applied to the analysis of literary “texts”. I will use the term “text” or “textual” here in a wide semiotic perspective (Fabbri and Marrone, 2000, pp. 7-11). Therefore also movies, paintings, pictures and not just books o written productions, can be considered as such.

A binarization of challenging historical inscription is improved by means of sparse methods. The approximation is based on a binary dictionary learned by k-medians and k-medoids algorithms from a clear source. Some preliminary results show superiority to the existing binarization with respect to fine features such as strokes continuity, deviations from a straight line, edge noise and the presence of stains. The k-medians dictionary-learning scheme shows a robust behavior when initial patches database is reduced.

The following draft outlines grass roots observations from a College-based Higher Education context during the transition to fully online delivery of a humanities degree during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Applying Henri Lefebvre’s production of space theory to the transposition of the learning environment to the domestic domain, is helpful in understanding the relationship between altered spaces and social interaction. Likewise, the application of Erving Goffman’s Face theory provides an analytical model for uncovering potential causes for the subsequent ways in which interaction is affected. These observations may serve as the starting point for qualitative empirical research to devise support strategies to reduce anxiety levels in students.

This paper describes the concept and structure of The Kingdom of Sicily Image Database, a virtual museum of the medieval monuments and cities of South Italy (c.1000-1450). This geographic area was a central conduit for the transmission of forms and concepts between the cultures of the Mediterranean (Islamic and Byzantine) and Europe.  The buildings of Normans, Swabians and French conquerors were also important and early attestations to the role of architecture and its decoration as an affirmation of state identity.  For the island of Sicily, the symbolic valence of monuments was particularly important because the buildings articulated the passage from Muslim to Christian rulership.
            Yet this South Italian cultural heritage has suffered severe damage.  Many important sites were bombed by the Allies in the Second World War (Messina, Palermo, Naples). Others were devastated by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions (Catania, and Naples again). Modern restorations, and especially those of the immediate post-war period, reconfigured buildings in accordance with the tastes of later historic moments: a good example is the “re-medievalizing” of churches and fortifications during the Fascist period, or the modern postwar reconstructions of the cathedrals of Benevento and Teano. In addition, the exponential growth of cities has transformed how we perceive monuments in their natural and urban environments: church towers that once loomed over cities and harbors are often now immersed in a constellation of skyscrapers, and the pleasure gardens of palaces are buried under apartment complexes.
            These losses, however, can in part be mitigated by the wide range of images created by artists and travelers between the fifteenth and twentieth centuries.  Sometimes these were collected by the élite voyagers of the Grand Tour, or artists and architects being trained in the Beaux-Arts tradition, but there are also drawings and photographs made during the Allied campaigns in 1943-1944. A vast number of images is scattered throughout museums and private or public collections in Europe and North America.