19.697 text-analytic fantasies and realities

               Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 19, No. 697.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
                   www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
                        www.princeton.edu/humanist/
                     Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu

   [1] From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty_at_kcl.ac.uk> (17)
         Subject: an actual allegorical map?

   [2] From: "Matt Kirschenbaum" <mkirschenbaum_at_gmail.com> (32)
         Subject: Re: 19.694 text-analytic fantasies and realities

--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 08:28:03 +0100
         From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty_at_kcl.ac.uk>
         Subject: an actual allegorical map?

To Espen Ore's question, of whether I am inclined to sketch an actual
map to correspond to the allegorical vision I described for an
intellectual landscape, the answer is no -- I lack the talent. But I
sincerely hope that someone here will be inspired to draw such a map
and make it generally available. Some here will know that Harold
Short and I developed a map for all of the digital humanities. It has
proven *very* effective in talks around the world to illustrate what
we're going on about. A more specialised map, perhaps like my
Bunyanesque vision (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/bunyan/pilgrim.i.html),
would do similar good for many of us scholarly pilgrims.

My thanks to Hugh Craig for reminding me of my indebtedness to Bunyan.

Yours,
WM

Dr Willard McCarty | Reader in Humanities Computing | Centre for
Computing in the Humanities | King's College London | Kay House, 7
Arundel Street | London WC2R 3DX | U.K. | +44 (0)20 7848-2784 fax:
-2980 || willard.mccarty_at_kcl.ac.uk www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/wlm/

--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 08:29:31 +0100
         From: "Matt Kirschenbaum" <mkirschenbaum_at_gmail.com>
         Subject: Re: 19.694 text-analytic fantasies and realities

> >--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 06:55:46 +0100
> > From: Pat Galloway <galloway_at_ischool.utexas.edu>
> > > >
> >Why not just instrument an author experimentally and "watch" her
> >composing digitally? It would certainly be worth a single experiment
> >with a willing author. The main problem would be preserving the
> >resulting files and logs in a functional state long enough to analyze
> >them, and even that could be achieved if the author in question could
> >be persuaded to use an open-source writing platform.
>
> Better yet, could you convince authors to work on their own personal
> wiki? That
> way we could track the edits and the final product at the same time.
> But this
> would not capture notes, cuts and paste to the website etc.
>
> I bet Margaret Atwood would go for this.

I've collected several dozen participants for a "creative versioning"
project that would work by having writers check their documents in and
out of a CVS:

http://www.otal.umd.edu/~mgk/blog/archives/000847.html

Just have to find the time to get it all set up. Matt

--
Matthew Kirschenbaum
Assistant Professor of English
Acting Associate Director,
Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH)
University of Maryland
301-405-8505 or 301-314-7111 (fax)
http://www.mith.umd.edu/
http://www.otal.umd.edu/~mgk/