Digital Humanities Resources – Technology and Literature

Below I’ve listed several resources by subject heading. I’ve sub-categorized them as readings, examples, and tools. By each tool, I’ve put a tinkering index from 1-10. A tinkering index of 1 indicated that a tool will require little to know experimentation whereas a tinkering index of 10, will require some extra time to learn, but it will usually be worth the added benefits.

What is the Digital Humanities
Data Mining
Networks
GIS and Spatial Analysis
Text Encoding
Storytelling and Exhibits

What is the Digital Humanities?

Reading

Several useful, open access essays appear in the Debates in the Digital Humanities Series from CUNY Press.

Tutorials

Drucker, Johanna, et. al. “Introduction to Digital Humanities: Concepts, Methods, and Tutorials for Students and Instructors.” UCLA Center for Digital Humanities. 2013.

Data Mining

Data mining is the computational process of discovering patterns in large data sets.

Reading

Dinsman, Melissa. “The Digital in the Humanities: An Interview with Franco Moretti.” LA Review of Books. 2 Mar. 2016.

Moretti, Franco. Distant Reading. New York: Verso 2013.

Underwood, Ted. Why Literary Periods Mattered: Historical Contrast and the Prestige of English Studies. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2013.

Tools

Voyant, tinkerering index 3

A suite of text mining and visualization tools that can help you quickly analyze word usage in a single text or across a corpus.

Networks

“Social network analysis (SNA) is the process of investigating social structures through the use of networkand graph theories. It characterizes networked structures in terms of nodes (individual actors, people, or things within the network) and the ties, edges, or links (relationships or interactions) that connect them.” Definition from Wikipedia.

Reading

Jagoda, Patrick. Network Aesthetics. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2016.

Examples

Mapping the Republic of Letters: network case studies using letters exchanged between key figures of Enlightenment thought.

Tools

Textexture, tinkering index 1: A quick tool for visualizing a network, but it doesn’t give you many editing capabilities.

Gephi, tinkering index 8: An open access tool for creating a variety of visualizations, particularly networks.

Cytoscape, tinkering index 8: An open access tool for creating a variety of visualizations, particularly networks.

GIS and Spatial Analysis

Reading

“What is the Spatial Turn?” Scholar’s Lab, University of Virginia.

Examples

Kristine Hildebrandt, dir. Manang Languages Project, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Though they’ve been working with the API, this project’s atlas is using Google My Maps.

Mapping Emotions in Victorian London, Stanford.

Lisa Reilly, dir. “On Haj with Ibn Jubayr: Reconstructing the 12th-Century Mediterranean.” Created by students in a class at the University of Virginia, this project runs on Neatline and is a useful illustration of what that platform can do.

Tools

Old Maps Online, this project through the British Library provides access to several already-geo-referenced historical maps, including many related to Victorian London.

National Library of Scotland, This site also includes several already-referenced maps.

Neatline, (a plugin for Omeka), Omeka is a content management system and exhibiting software specifically designed to display and share historical documents. When you add the Neatline plugin to Omeka, you can make exhibits that overlay historical maps onto contemporary maps and coordinate references by space and time using Neatline’s Timeline feature (this would take some extra effort to get set-up, so ask Dr. DeSpain if you are interested.

Google My Maps, This tool, which we already used extensively in class, allows you to plot out routes and interactive mapping visualizations. You can overlay historic maps too; just make sure you find some that are already georeferenced first. See this Thought Co tutorial for guidance.