Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 16, No. 632.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
Submit to: humanist@princeton.edu
[1] From: Norman Hinton <hinton@springnet1.com> (10)
Subject: Re: 16.629 preservation
[2] From: lachance@chass.utoronto.ca (Francois Lachance) (43)
Subject: reading traces Re: 16.622 preservation and absence
[3] From: lachance@chass.utoronto.ca (Francois Lachance) (57)
Subject: evaporation Re: 16.629 preservation
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2003 06:35:55 +0100
From: Norman Hinton <hinton@springnet1.com>
Subject: Re: 16.629 preservation
Two outstanding examples of re-writers are (as Willard knows) W.B. Yeats
and Walt Whitman. If we did not have the early versions of their poems we
would be missing a number of great works of art. In some cases the first
published versions were finer than the later ones. (Cf. Auden's "Elegy on
the death of W. B. Yeats', in which the later milder final version has been
'cleaned up' to reflect Auden's later political views - it isn't nearly as
good. (The same goes for the re-written "Under Which Lyre") But we have
all the published versions, and we have all or most of Yeats' remarkable
drafts of "Sailing to Byzantium", for out eternal amazement. And we have at
least 9 versions of Whitman's _Leaves of Grass_ to read.
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2003 06:36:29 +0100
From: lachance@chass.utoronto.ca (Francois Lachance)
Subject: reading traces Re: 16.622 preservation and absence
Willard,
You quoted
> Jed Z. Buchwald [...]
> piece, "The scholar's seeing eye", in "Reworking the bench - research
> notebooks in the history of science", eds. F. L. Holmes, J. Renn,
> H-J Rheinberger, ARCHIMEDES, vol. 7, pgs. 311-25. He argues that,
>
[...]
> >world of paper -- it may be difficult for them to find the residue of
> >human thought and action, because they will be used to seeing only the
> >perfected digital record, which will rarely leave informative traces of
> >the road not taken. Paper retains its human stain; the digital record is
> >spotless.
And then you ask:
> loss. Are we really without qualification the preservers of knowledge?
The above is a "digital record" in which "spottedness" is highlighted by
"excision" and "interpollation". If I may be so bold to suggest that
historians will be reading not a prefected digital record but a series of
records, it is because I know that certain archives have received not just
the complete hard drive contents but the hard ware as well (I have in mind
the case the fonds bpnichol at Simon Fraser University). The problem is
not one of "leaving" traces but future access to those traces. Further the
"trace" problem is not inherent in the technology (some users save whole
series of versions). It is a deontological question: what traces do users
wish to be left. Whether it is the individual space of the "personal
computer" or the account on a mainframe, the digital realm provides for
information interchange between the semi-private space of the local file
storage and processing unit and the public space of data and applications
made available to other users. Out of some dream of the _complete_ record
and aspiration to a mastery of a plenitude of possible paths, the
historian of science may bemoan lack of access to the semi-private sphere
where work gets done. But how much work would get done if users couldn't
make a "mess" in a preserve free of the future prying eyes of historians?
I say "disposers of knowledge" -- without qualification -- i.e.
fabricators of dispositions.
<sigilla>
<civic.name>François Lachance</civic.name>
<self.desig>Scholar-at-large</self.desig>
<activity>Actively visiting <?insert URN?></activity>
<motto><w corresp="grok">gork</w> structure, savour <w
corresp="peace">content</w>, <s ana="play-with-piece">enjoy
form</s></motto>
</sigilla>
--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2003 06:37:00 +0100
From: lachance@chass.utoronto.ca (Francois Lachance)
Subject: evaporation Re: 16.629 preservation
Willard,
I've taken your statement (quoted below) and by a few strokes composed a
version in the past tense in order to tease out those implications:
No one did ever see the words
[the projection of a future "will see" assumes a having seen and exposes
the phenomenology of "to see" in relation to "recognize seeing"]
I had written
[note the subtle assumption of persistence in "have written" and the hint
of loss and decay in "had written"; the English tense system allows us to
ponder the relation we might conceive between the action (to write), the
act (the writing) and the product (the written)]
but then had [have?] deleted
[the temporal relations between
"have written" and "have deleted"
"have written" and "had deleted"
"had written" and "had deleted"
"had written" and "have deleted"
offer a mini display of the complexities of punctuating the past]
from this note,
[ the trickiness of the diectic "this" which can point to
the "note" as object on the screen and the "note" as object held in the
reading mind]
and I could not [was not able to] even remember at the moment
[tense and mode colour the statement of a failure of memory]
what they had been.
[they - the words considered -- have an independence from their
being written, deleted or remembered -- try remembering the unwritten
word]
Trying to remember the unwritten word -- for computing in the humanities
may be a move from instance to system, reading with a view that sufficient
manipulation of a string leads to a matrix. And in a non-verbal vein,
imagining a possible system or considering an artefact or a set of
artefacts as a sense-making machine (including the meaningful scrambling
of sense) depends in part on trying to remember the unproduced sign or
trace.
Humanities computing perhaps reflects that space of practice between
historical reconstruction of the genesis of a semiotic object and the
rhetoric that accompanies the changing contexts for the reception of such
an object. It is a space of practice where people can turn to the machine
model to make perceivable the ways of reading, ways of constructing
meaning and ways of configuring practice.
> what we are in fact doing. No one will ever see the words I have written
> but then deleted from this note, and I cannot even remember at the moment
> what they were. A trivial case, perhaps, but not in its implications, I
> think. What migh these be?
In not seeing the not-remembering and the not-writing, I join you in the
labour of a machine-assisted hermeneutics - a lovely activity for finite
beings.
-- <sigilla> <civic.name>François Lachance</civic.name> <self.desig>Scholar-at-large</self.desig> <activity>Actively visiting <?insert URN?></activity> <motto><w corresp="grok">gork</w> structure, savour <w corresp="peace">content</w>, <s ana="play-with-piece">enjoy form</s></motto> </sigilla>
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