Computing the English Middle Ages: A Sociotechnical Study of Medievalists' Engagement with Digital Humanities

Autor/in	Simpson, Grant Leyton
Titel	Computing the English Middle Ages: A Sociotechnical Study of Medievalists' Engagement with Digital Humanities
Quelle	(2017), (323 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit Ph.D. Dissertation, Indiana University
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Monographie
ISBN	978-1-3697-5569-5
Schlagwörter	Hochschulschrift; Dissertation; Humanities; Information Technology; Medieval Literature; English Literature; Old English; Indexes; Values; Dictionaries; Research Projects; Scholarship; Networks; Communities of Practice + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Thesis; Dissertations; Academic thesis; Geisteswissenschaften; Humanwissenschaften; Informationstechnologie; Englische literatur; Altenglisch; Indexdatei; Wertbegriff; Dictionary; Wörterbuch; Forschungsvorhaben; Scholarships; Stipendium; Community
Abstract	With few exceptions, digital humanities projects and objects have been described rather than studied. This dissertation attempts to advance that discourse by empirically studying, from a sociotechnical point of view, DH projects and the products they produce, specifically those within the realm of Old and Middle English language and literature. Before exploring specific instances, I establish a provisional definition of "technical objects" as thick (Alder, 2007), socially constitutive (Latour, 1991), and inexactly delineated material or ideational entities (Day, 2007). I then investigate computer-generated concordances of medieval English texts, namely "A Concordance to Five Middle English Poems" (Kottler and Markman, 1966) and "A Concordance to Beowulf" (Bessinger and Smith, 1969), and the network of values that shape their design and use. I argue that the visual evidence of reference works can provide a window into the conditions of their creation and use, and thus their values. From values I turn to notions of space and place and their role in project work. I explore the Dictionary of Old English project, with particular attention to the ways that the project has shaped its intellectual and spatial territory. I then investigate ways of participation in the domain of digital medievalism, in particular the following six projects: "Electronic Beowulf," The Canterbury Tales Project, Textual Communities, the Medieval Electronic Scholarly Alliance, the Global Middle Ages Project, and Digital Medievalist. I argue that scholarly networks consist of human and non-human actants and that interaction takes place among both kinds of actants. I discuss two ways of participating in a scholarly network: the production of infrastructure and engagement in and/or creation of communities of practice. I conclude by outlining a rich descriptive framework for studying digital humanities projects that makes use of values, place and space, and participation in infrastructure and/or communities of practice. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.] (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01