Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 39, No. 440.
Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
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Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
Date: 2026-04-28 11:16:17+00:00
From: maurizio lana <maurizio.lana@uniupo.it>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 39.436: interdisciplinary discussions
thank you Yann for the articles (among others, available in JSTOR)
i am increasingly interested in 'the origin of the present': the routes
which brought us to where we are now.
and, btw, your lines
> A friend of mine is studying cancer---I hope she finds answers;
> I study DH, theory, and Philip K. Dick's letters---I hope to never be done.
are a wonderful characterisation of the specificity of humanities
Maurizio
Il 28/04/26 08:30, Humanist ha scritto:
> Dear McCarty, McGann and others (Mcs and no-Mcs alike),
>
> I am about a year away from being that "freshly minted PhD" who will try to be
> employable despite a tendency for chasing too many hares and letting most of
> them slip. I'm learning to live with the fact that I will ask many questions
and
> find few answers.
>
> I find some solace in the few spaces where interdisciplinary discussions can
> occur; they are very few of them and I just lost mine. McGill's Building 21
was
> such a community, and it just lost its address due to the university taking
back
> its space. I didn't go half as much as I should have over the last two years.
On
> one hand, I moved twice, each time a bit further from its characteristic green
> door on Sherbrooke street. On the other hand, most of the B21 people I knew
> graduated and left; and no one wants to feel like leftovers.
>
> I went back a few days ago to see their last showcase event and got reminded
of
> some discussions I had on the nature of math, the philosophy of physics, and
the
> limits of language. I know none of that will matter in terms of employability,
> but it was worth the few hours every week.
>
> That's enough eulogizing... All of this to say that approaching research as a
> path to a quick answer is the least interesting way to look at it. A friend of
> mine is studying cancer---I hope she finds answers; I study DH, theory, and
> Philip K. Dick's letters---I hope to never be done.
>
> Responding to Jerome McGann, scholarship to me is a living discussion, it
might
> be archived on paper and in databases, but as a practice it might resist the
> current technological changes better than science. "Scholarship" might be an
> action-verb, and in a context where solutions are useless, solution machines
(AI
> and such) won't cut it.
>
> Anyway, I hope this was not too off-topic, I actually wanted to share Dolores
M.
> Burton, series on concordances in Computers and the Humanities published in
1981
> and 1982:
>
>
> *Automated concordances and word indexes: The fifties;
> *Automated concordances and word indexes: The early sixties and the early
> centers;
> *Automated concordances and word indexes: The process, the programs, and
the
> products;
> *Automated concordances and word-indexes: Machine decisions and editorial
> revisions.
>
> ...and mention her English Stylistics: A Bibliography co-written with Richard
W.
> Bailey which has a wonderful chapter on "Statistical Approaches to Style" with
> some references to the earliest books and articles in Literary Computing (some
> of which came before computers)!
>
> Cheers,
>
> Yann Audin
> PhD Candidate
> Literature and Digital Humanities
> University of Montreal
> https://yann-audin.github.io/Cybermeneutics/
-----
the knowledge gap between rich and poor is widening
witten & bainbridge, how to build a digital library
------
Maurizio Lana
Università del Piemonte Orientale
Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici
Piazza Roma 36 - 13100 Vercelli
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