Arianna Ciula

A case study on the System for Paleographic Inspections (SPI): challenges and new developments

Of all the disciplines that study the past through its written heritage, paleography For an introduction to paleography see [1]. is the one that focuses mainly on the analysis of the script borne by manuscript books. The goal of the paleographical method is to date and to localize books produced by hand through the analysis of their ancient scripts. This chapter describes the System for Paleographic Inspections (SPI) software suite developed at the University of Pisa, how the system has been used by paleographers in their attempts to classify and identify scripts, and how it can be improved further to meet the research needs of paleographers.

Modelling in digital humanities: Signs in context

In this paper we focus on modelling as a creative process to gain new knowledge about material and immaterial objects by generating and manipulating external representations of them. We aim at enriching the current theoretical understanding by contextualising digital humanities practices within a semiotic conceptualisation of modelling. A semiotic approach enables us to contextualise modelling in a scholarly framework well suited to humanistic enquiries, forcing us to investigate how models function as signs within specific contexts of production and use. Kralemann and Lattmann’s semiotic model of modelling complemented by Ellestroms theories on iconicity are some of the tools we use to inform this semiotic perspective on modelling. We contextualise Kralemann and Lattmann’s theory within modelling practices in digital humanities by using three examples of models representing components and structure of historical artefacts. We show how their model of models can be used to understand and contextualise the models we study and how their classification of model types clarify important aspects of digital humanities modelling practice.

Exploring a Semiotic Conceptualisation of Modelling in Digital Humanities Practices

Digital Humanities (hereafter DH) is a research field engaged in exploring how humanities scholarship is transformed and extended by the digital and vice versa. The core practice of DH research is modelling which implies the translation of complex systems of knowledge into computationally processable models. In our work we contextualise DH practices within a semiotic framework; namely we consider modelling as a strategy to make sense (signification) via practical thinking (creation and manipulation of models). A semiotic approach of this kind contributes to stress the dynamic nature of models and modelling, and to reinstate in renewed terms the understanding of modelling as open process of signification enacting a triadic cooperation (among object, representamen and interpretant). Referring to Peirce classification of hypoicons, we reflect on some DH examples of modelling in the form of images, diagrams and metaphors, claiming that a semiotic understanding of modelling could ultimately allow us to surpass the duality object versus model (as well as sign vs. context). We thus propose to consider modelling as a creative and highly pragmatic process of thinking and reasoning in which metaphors assume a central role and where meaning is negotiated through the creation and manipulation of external representations combined with an imaginative use of formal and informal languages.

Text Comparison and Digital Creativity. The Production of Presence and Meaning in Digital Text ScholarshipWido Van Peursen, Ernst D. Thoutenhoofd, Adriaan Van Der Weel (eds).

In fourteen thoughtful essays this book reports and reflects on the many changes that a digital workflow brings to the world of original texts and textual scholarship, and the effect on scholarly communication practices. The spread of digital technology across philology, linguistics and literary studies suggests that text scholarship is taking on a more laboratory-like image. The ability to sort, quantify, reproduce and report text through computation would seem to facilitate the exploration of text as another type of quantitative scientific data. However, developing this potential also highlights text analysis and text interpretation as two increasingly separated sub-tasks in the study of texts. The implied dual nature of interpretation as the traditional, valued mode of scholarly text comparison, combined with an increasingly widespread reliance on digital text analysis as scientific mode of inquiry raises the question as to whether the reflexive concepts that are central to interpretation - individualism, subjectivity - are affected by the anonymised, normative assumptions implied by formal categorisations of text as digital data.