Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 38, No. 105.
Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
Hosted by DH-Cologne
www.dhhumanist.org
Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
[1] From: Elisabeth Burr <elisabeth.burr@uni-leipzig.de>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.103: Michael Sperberg-McQueen (108)
[2] From: Dr. Herbert Wender <drwender@aol.com>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.103: Michael Sperberg-McQueen (17)
[3] From: WARWICK, CLAIRE L. <c.l.h.warwick@durham.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.103: Michael Sperberg-McQueen (28)
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2024-08-20 15:16:26+00:00
From: Elisabeth Burr <elisabeth.burr@uni-leipzig.de>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.103: Michael Sperberg-McQueen
Dear Willard,
thank you so much for the stories. They soothe at least a little bit
the sadness I feel because of Michaels unexpected death. I had hoped
to meet him again as has been the case for so many years, but it
cannot be.
Elisabeth (Burr)
Zitat von Humanist <humanist@dhhumanist.org>:
> Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 38, No. 103.
> Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
> Hosted by DH-Cologne
> www.dhhumanist.org
> Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
>
>
>
>
> Date: 2024-08-18 08:31:38+00:00
> From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@mccarty.org.uk>
> Subject: Michael Sperberg-McQueen (18 May 1954 – 16 August 2024)
>
> Dear colleagues,
>
> What can one say about the death of a close friend? A couple of stories
> is my offering here--a poor one, but it is what I have to give.
> Biographical details may be found elsewhere.*.
>
> I'm writing to pay personal tribute, not because of his great
> professional accomplishments. Put simply and inadequately, he changed
> and enabled the computational encoding of our cultural heritage, hence
> how publishing is done, how resources are constructed and retrieved, and
> likely much else I am unaware of and incompetent to comment on. Put
> simply he changed my life, though without intending to do anything of
> the sort. Perhaps he never understood the extent of what he had done for
> me. But within that bit of personal history is something else worth
> sharing. It has to do with Humanist, and so with the kind of
> dissemination of what we do that is its own reward. Those here who have
> taught likely know how you take refuge sometimes after teaching a class
> to students who seem not to have grasped what you've said at all; you
> tell yourself, "you'll never know what effect you've had, perhaps
> something good." And then a student, perhaps many years later, comes up
> to you and tells you how you've changed her or his life. Or something
> like that.
>
> Michael and I met at the ACH/ICCH conference in Columbia, South
> Carolina, in April 1987. He was there to give a paper entitled
> "Providing centralized support for humanities computing", and I to talk
> (very nervously, as I recall, to travel-weary colleagues some of whom
> fell asleep) about "How we work: Implementing a model for inductive
> research in the humanities".** Both Michael and I were at the time among
> the many misemployed academics stuck in support roles and not at all
> happy about it, throwing ourselves--this is how I thought about it in
> darker moments--against an impervious brick wall. It may be hard to
> believe now that then ANY affiliation with computing was for a newly
> minted PhD virtually a guarantee of failure on the job-market. This was
> certainly the case for both of us.
>
> At the conference, spotting Michael's topic, I dimly remember conspiring
> with him to hold a spontaneous, unscheduled meeting later that evening
> to discuss our outcast state. Word of the meeting was circulated; a
> couple of dozen people turned up, including the father of American
> humanities computing, Joe Raben. Michael spoke eloquently, as
> always. Then we all discussed what to do to put to work the obvious and
> highly encouraging energy and fellow-feeling among us in the room. Soon
> we'd all be gone, back to our jobs, and inevitably determination to do
> something would fade in the day-to-day grind. I volunteered to handle
> communication among us, how I did not know. E-mail was young then in the
> humanities. Back home in Toronto, thanks to a colleague in the computing
> centre, ListServ was unearthed, and Humanist went online.*** Without
> it--without Michael--so much that then evolved would not have happened,
> not the subsequent career I have enjoyed and the life that has come with
> it. So much would have been very different indeed. Hence my personal
> indebtedness to Michael Sperberg-McQueen.
>
> It would do the man whose life I mean to celebrate injustice, however,
> not to remember and dwell on his wonderful generosity of spirit,
> friendship and radiant warmth. A small anecdote to illustrate. I
> remember going to a restaurant somewhere in Germany with him and some
> others, likely during yet another conference. Michael, a big man, was
> having difficulty wedging himself between the wall and the table, and so
> apologised to the waitress (auf Deutsch, of course). She replied
> cheerily, "Ein Mann ohne Bauch ist wie ein Tag ohne Sonnenschein", "A
> man without stomach is like a day without sunshine."
>
> We have lost such sunshine!
>
> Yours,
> Willard McCarty
> ----------
> * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Sperberg-McQueen
> ** https://dh-abstracts.library.virginia.edu/works?conference=79.
> *** "HUMANIST: Lessons from a Global Electronic Seminar", Computers and
> the Humanities 26: 205-222, 1992.
>
>
>
> --
> Willard McCarty,
> Professor emeritus, King's College London;
> Editor, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews; Humanist
> www.mccarty.org.uk
Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Burr
Universität Leipzig
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2024-08-19 20:27:49+00:00
From: Dr. Herbert Wender <drwender@aol.com>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.103: Michael Sperberg-McQueen
Lieber Willard,mein herzliches Beileid möchte ich - zumindest für alle des
Deutschen mächtigen Kolleginnen und Kollegen - mit dem Hinweis auf einen Vortrag
verbinden, von dem ich selbst erst relativ spät erfahren habe: Michael hat 2018
die Kölner DH-Tagung mit der Keynote "Kritik der digitalen Vernunft"
abgeschlossen. Die Video-Aufzeichnung findet man an verschiedenen Orten im Netz,
u.a. hier:C. Michael Sperberg-McQueen | Kritik der digitalen Vernunft | L.I.S.A.
WISSENSCHAFTSPORTAL GERDA HENKEL STIFTUNG
C. Michael Sperberg-McQueen | Kritik der digitalen Vernunft | L.I.S.A. W...
[https://lisa.gerda-henkel-stiftung.de/c._michael_sperberg_mcqueen_kritik_der_digitalen_vernunft?nav_id=7640&language=en]
Die Organisatoren der Tagung stellen den Teilnehmern die Frage: "Gibt es im
Umgang mit digitalen Medien, in der ...
Herzlichst, Herbert
--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2024-08-19 15:10:51+00:00
From: WARWICK, CLAIRE L. <c.l.h.warwick@durham.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.103: Michael Sperberg-McQueen
Dear Willard,
I was very sorry to hear of Michael’s death but thank you for this eloquent
appreciation of him. I didn’t know Michael very well, but when I did come across
him, I always found him to be delightful, friendly, funny, but also deeply
scholarly and knowledgeable. I was in awe of his achievements as a TEI and XML
pioneer, but he always wore his immense learning lightly and was respectful and
encouraging of those of us earlier in our careers. In other words, he was the
epitome of all that is best in DH and the ultimate opposite of what was worst in
the traditional humanities scholarship from which he had escaped.
It's enlightening, in this context, to read your description, below, of the way
that you both felt rejected by the traditional humanities establishment. Of
course, it was their loss, and DH’s gain. But I was also very sad to read
Michael’s discussion of this in the relevant chapter of Julianne Nyhan and
Andrew Flinn’s excellent oral history collection: Computation and the
Humanities. It seemed that he retained a sense of unhappy longing for that other
world for a long time, despite his many achievements in DH and in industry. If
so, I hope Michael came to realise how much his colleagues in the field that he
did so much to create and nurture, valued him, both as a person and a DH
pioneer. I hope that brought him happiness. Perhaps because of being excluded
from an old world, he was a remarkable maker of things new. And that is very
much to be celebrated.
May the earth lie gently upon him.
Claire
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