As projects such as the William Blake and Walt Whitman Archives testify to, the digital humanities have worked hard to preserve and freely distribute literary texts. Creating places to store high quality electronic reproductions of original works is great, but what form will the next developments for such sites take?
How can we apply the problem solving, analytical, and searching tools of computer science to the specific needs of humanities scholars? How can we use programming to improve comparative and contextual analysis of archived texts?
Following that line of thought, I would like to discuss what an introductory programming course geared towards the humanities, that is, non-computer science majors, would look like. Should it be focused on searching methods and text analysis? What programming language would be most appropriate? What would your expectations for such a course be?
#1 by Ben Brumfield on March 9, 2012 - 9:22 pm
I’m very interested in this myself. Although I have a CS degree, I find that a lot of the tools used for dealing with text are not quite what I was taught as part of my traditional curriculum — a curriculum that while certainly thorough did treat everyday tasks like reading multi-lingual files as an afterthought.
#2 by Fanny on March 9, 2012 - 9:37 pm
It would be nice to have the perspective of a CS person on this issue.
#3 by Trish Dupew on March 9, 2012 - 10:02 pm
The question posed here is extraordinarily relevant to the continued growth of the digital humanities. Creating a computer science course specifically designed for humanities scholars would help bridge some of the gaps that still exist at this time. I think the questions you pose for this session are a good beginning.