Bridging the Gap: Managing a Digital Medieval Initiative Across Disciplines and Institutions (original) (raw)
Related papers
Digital Philology: A Journal of Medieval Cultures, 2013
This essay offers an insight into the way digital editions of medieval texts can be employed to replicate the medieval reading experience. Awareness of the characteristic features of medieval textuality, exemplified through select late medieval texts, can help in developing increasingly flexible editorial models, which are more consistent with medieval reading practices than current editions. Editions, transformed from single textual occurrences into fluid, communal, and unfolding processes, can uncover a complex notion of medieval hypertextuality by linking texts, images, and tunes. They can then even trace the reception of a given text. As readers are empowered to zoom in and out specific textual components, of manuscript witnesses, of families and printed editions, digital editions can present individual witnesses alongside editorial apparatuses and thus bridge the gap between the Old and the New Philology.
Old Light on New Media: Medieval Practices in the Digital Age
This essay offers an insight into the way digital editions of medieval texts can be employed to replicate the medieval reading experience. Awareness of the characteristic features of medieval textuality, exemplified through select late medieval texts, can help in developing increasingly flexible editorial models, which are more consistent with medieval reading practices than current editions. Editions, transformed from single textual occurrences into fluid, communal, and unfolding processes, can uncover a complex notion of medieval hypertextuality by linking texts, images, and tunes. They can then even trace the reception of a given text. As readers are empowered to “zoom” in and out specific textual components, of manuscript witnesses, of families and printed editions, digital editions can present individual witnesses alongside editorial apparatuses and thus bridge the gap between the Old and the New Philology.
Medieval Digital Humanities (ENG 697)
In the Spring semester of 2011 I signed up for a PhD level seminar at Northern Illinois University entitled "Paleography" taught by Dr. Nicole Clifton. The majority of the coursework consisted of learning various styles of handwriting scripts dating from 100 BCE to 1700 CE as well as transcribing, dating, and identifying the origin of a manuscript housed in the Rare Books section of the university library. It was in this class that I was first introduced to the extensive work conducted by the British Library"s Manuscript Studies division housed on their website. The BL was able to digitize a large assortment of collected texts from across their holdings, especially medieval manuscripts dating as early as the 10 th century. While I have previously involved myself in such technological discussions as Kairos and Computers and Composition, I had never spent time working with the intersection between ancient text and modern technology. The availability of ancient manuscripts and the ability to work with programs like Adobe allowed me to transition my thinking about writing from one that focused exclusively on hypertextual writing to seeing the need for writing to become more accessible, especially works that are normally housed in archives hidden away from public view. Is there a digital medieval humanities? Multimodality within the medieval community is nothing new as projects such as CANTUS database, Project Gutenberg, various linguistic tutorials for medieval Latin, Old High German, Old English, and Old French, and annotated hypertext websites covering the works of Geoffrey Chaucer, Thomas Malory, and Wolfram von Eschenbach.
Past, Present, and Future of Digital Medievalism
Literature Compass, 2012
In this article, the author looks back at over 30 years of experience with ''Digital Humanities'' and argues that while our media for research, delivery, have changed, our methodologies have not. That fact poses a significant challenge for Digital Medievalists because the author believes and advocates for a significant change not just in our delivery systems, but that the digital tools we now have should be changing the way we think and do research, teach, and advertise Medieval Studies as a whole. At once a personal story of experience in the field and an analysis of current practices, this article critiques practices frequently touted as innovative and the wave of the future as nothing more than the same old packages using a new delivery system that may or may not be as effective as the previous delivery system. This critique in the author's view applies to our teaching as well as to our research. Finally, the author offers some suggestions for both research and teaching that attempt to break out of the old molds and methods and use the digital tools we have in innovative ways that do change the way medievalists research and teach and take fuller advantage of what working digitally offers the field.
Meeting the Medieval in a Digital World
Meeting the Medieval in a Digital World, 2018
This book looks at the intersection between medieval studies and digital humanities, confronting how medievalists negotiate the 'virtual divide' between the cultural artefacts that they study and the digital means by which they address those artefacts. The essays come from medievalists who have created digital resources or applied digital tools and methodologies in their scholarship. Text encoding and analysis, data modeling and provenance, and 3D design are all discussed as they apply to western European medieval literature, history, art history, and architecture.
The Digital Middle Ages: An Introduction
Speculum, 2017
Our aims in this supplement of Speculum are frankly immodest. In organizing a series of sessions devoted to the digital for the Medieval Academy annual meeting in 2016, we hoped, by bringing together a diversity of projects, to showcase for the Academy membership the wide range of exciting possibilities afforded by digital humanities (DH). The papers gathered here are drawn largely from those sessions, with several additions. We want to acknowledge the contributions of Sarah Spence and William Stoneman, coorganizers of the sessions, for their inspiration and help. This supplement is the first issue of Speculum devoted to digital medieval projects, and it is offered in an online, open-access format that reinforces the openness to which the digital aspires and which it encourages.