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DHQ: Digital Humanities Quarterly: 2023
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2.1</a></li><li><a href="/dhq/vol/1/2/index.html">2007: 1.2</a></li><li><a href="/dhq/vol/1/1/index.html">2007: 1.1</a></li></ul><span>Indexes<br/></span><ul><li><a href="/dhq/index/title.html"> Title</a></li><li><a href="/dhq/index/author.html"> Author</a></li></ul></div><img src="/dhq/common/images/lbarrev.png" style="margin-left : 7px;" alt=""/><div id="leftsideID"><b>ISSN 1938-4122</b><br/></div><div class="leftsidecontent"><h3>Announcements</h3><ul><li><a href="/dhq/news/news.html#peer_reviews">Call for Reviewers</a></li><li><a href="/dhq/submissions/index.html#logistics">Call for Submissions</a></li></ul></div><div class="leftsidecontent"><script type="text/javascript">addthis_pub = 'dhq';</script><a href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php" onmouseover="return addthis_open(this, '', '[URL]', '[TITLE]')" onmouseout="addthis_close()" onclick="return addthis_sendto()"><img src="http://s9.addthis.com/button1-addthis.gif" width="125" height="16" alt="button1-addthis.gif"/></a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://s7.addthis.com/js/152/addthis_widget.js"><!-- Javascript functions --></script></div></div><div id="mainContent"><div id="printSiteTitle">DHQ: Digital Humanities Quarterly</div><div id="toc"> <h1>2023 17.2</h1> <h2>Critical Code Studies</h2> <div class="cluster"><h3>Editors: Mark Marino, Jeremy Douglass</h3></div> <div class="cluster"><h3>Front Matter</h3> <div class="articleInfo" style="margin:0 0 1em 0;"><span class="monospace">[en] </span><a href="/dhq/vol/17/2/000713/000713.html">Introduction: Situating Critical Code Studies in the Digital Humanities</a><div style="padding-left:1em; margin:0;text-indent:-1em;">Mark C. Marino, University of Southern California; Jeremy Douglass, University of California, Santa Barbara</div><span class="viewAbstract">Abstract <span class="viewAbstract monospace" style="display:inline" id="abstractExpanderabstract000713en"><a title="View Abstract" class="expandCollapse monospace" href="javascript:expandAbstract('abstract000713en')">[en]</a></span><span style="display:none" class="abstract" id="abstract000713en"> In this foreword from the editors we present a brief introduction to the field of Critical Code Studies, a reflection on its genesis and evolution, and a summary of the many and varied author contributions to Part 1 of this remarkable special collection. </span></span><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Introduction%3A%20Situating%20Critical%20Code%20Studies%20in%20the%20Digital%20Humanities&rft.jtitle=Digital%20Humanities%20Quarterly&rft.stitle=DHQ&rft.issn=1938-4122&rft.date=2023-07-19&rft.volume=017&rft.issue=2&rft.aulast=Marino&rft.aufirst=Mark C.&rft.au=Mark C.%20Marino&rft.au=Jeremy%20Douglass"> </span></div> </div> <div class="cluster"> <h3>Code Close Readings</h3> <div class="articleInfo" style="margin:0 0 1em 0;"><span class="monospace">[en] </span><a href="/dhq/vol/17/2/000700/000700.html">Reverse Engineering the Gendered Design of Amazon’s Alexa: Methods in Testing Closed-Source Code in Grey and Black Box Systems</a><div style="padding-left:1em; margin:0;text-indent:-1em;">Lai-Tze Fan, University of Waterloo</div><span class="viewAbstract">Abstract <span class="viewAbstract monospace" style="display:inline" id="abstractExpanderabstract000700en"><a title="View Abstract" class="expandCollapse monospace" href="javascript:expandAbstract('abstract000700en')">[en]</a></span><span style="display:none" class="abstract" id="abstract000700en"> This article examines the gendered design of Amazon Alexa’s voice-driven capabilities, or, “skills,” in order to better understand how Alexa, as an AI assistant, mirrors traditionally feminized labour and sociocultural expectations. While Alexa’s code is closed source — meaning that the code is not available to be viewed, copied, or edited — certain features of the code architecture may be identified through methods akin to reverse engineering and black box testing. This article will examine what is available of Alexa’s code — the official software developer console through the Alexa Skills Kit, code samples and snippets of official Amazon-developed skills on Github, and the code of an unofficial, third-party user-developed skill on Github — in order to demonstrate that Alexa is designed to be female presenting, and that, as a consequence, expectations of gendered labour and behaviour have been built into the code and user experiences of various Alexa skills. In doing so, this article offers methods in critical code studies toward analyzing code to which we do not have access. It also provides a better understanding of the inherently gendered design of AI that is designated for care, assistance, and menial labour, outlining ways in which these design choices may affect and influence user behaviours. </span></span><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Reverse%20Engineering%20the%20Gendered%20Design%20of%20Amazon%E2%80%99s%20Alexa%3A%20Methods%20in%20Testing%20Closed-Source%20Code%20in%20Grey%20and%20Black%20Box%20Systems&rft.jtitle=Digital%20Humanities%20Quarterly&rft.stitle=DHQ&rft.issn=1938-4122&rft.date=2023-07-20&rft.volume=017&rft.issue=2&rft.aulast=Fan&rft.aufirst=Lai-Tze&rft.au=Lai-Tze%20Fan"> </span></div> <div class="articleInfo" style="margin:0 0 1em 0;"><span class="monospace">[en] </span><a href="/dhq/vol/17/2/000696/000696.html">BASIC FTBALL and Computer Programming for All</a><div style="padding-left:1em; margin:0;text-indent:-1em;">Annette Vee, University of Pittsburgh</div><span class="viewAbstract">Abstract <span class="viewAbstract monospace" style="display:inline" id="abstractExpanderabstract000696en"><a title="View Abstract" class="expandCollapse monospace" href="javascript:expandAbstract('abstract000696en')">[en]</a></span><span style="display:none" class="abstract" id="abstract000696en"> In late fall 1965, John Kemeny wrote a 239-line BASIC program called FTBALL***. Along with his colleague Thomas Kurtz and a few work-study students at Dartmouth College, Kemeny had developed the BASIC programming language and Dartmouth Time-Sharing System (DTSS). BASIC and DTSS represented perhaps the earliest successful attempt at “computer programming for all,” combining English-language vocabulary, simple yet robust instructions, and near-realtime access to a mainframe computer. This article takes a closer look at FTBALL as a crucial program in the history of “programming for all” while gesturing to the tension between a conception of “all” and FTBALL’s context in an elite, all-male college in the mid-1960s. I put FTBALL in a historical, cultural, gendered context of “programming for all” as well as the historical context of programming language development, timesharing technology, and the hardware and financial arrangements necessary to support this kind of playful, interactive program in 1965. I begin with a short history of BASIC’s early development, compare FTBALL with other early games and sports games, then move into the hardware and technical details that enabled the code before finally reading FTBALL’s code in detail. Using methods from critical code studies (Marino 2020), I point to specific innovations of BASIC at the time and outline the program flow of FTBALL. This history and code reading of BASIC FTBALL provides something of interest to computing historians, critical code studies practitioners, and games scholars and aficionados. </span></span><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=BASIC%20FTBALL%20and%20Computer%20Programming%20for%20All&rft.jtitle=Digital%20Humanities%20Quarterly&rft.stitle=DHQ&rft.issn=1938-4122&rft.date=2023-07-20&rft.volume=017&rft.issue=2&rft.aulast=Vee&rft.aufirst=Annette&rft.au=Annette%20Vee"> </span></div> <div class="articleInfo" style="margin:0 0 1em 0;"><span class="monospace">[en] </span><a href="/dhq/vol/17/2/000705/000705.html">Computational art Explorations of Linguistic Possibility Spaces: comparative translingual close readings of Daniel C. Howe’s <cite class="italic">Automatype</cite> and <cite class="italic">Radical of the Vertical Heart 忄</cite></a><div style="padding-left:1em; margin:0;text-indent:-1em;">John Cayley, Brown University</div><span class="viewAbstract">Abstract <span class="viewAbstract monospace" style="display:inline" id="abstractExpanderabstract000705en"><a title="View Abstract" class="expandCollapse monospace" href="javascript:expandAbstract('abstract000705en')">[en]</a></span><span style="display:none" class="abstract" id="abstract000705en"> A code-critical close reading of two related works by Daniel C. Howe. The artist's <cite class="italic">Automatype</cite> is an installation that visualizes and sonifies minimal-distance paths between English words and thus explores a possibility space that is relatively familiar to western readers, not only readers of English but also readers of any language which uses Latin letters to compose the orthographic word-level elements of its writing system . In Radical of the Vertical Heart 忄 (RotVH) Howe engages with commensurate explorations in certain possibility spaces of the Chinese writing system and of the language’s lexicon. Translinguistically these spaces and, as it were, orthographic architectures, are structured in radically different ways. A comparative close reading of the two works will bring us into productive discursive relationship not only with distinct and code-critically significant programming strategies, but also with under-appreciated comparative linguistic concepts having implications for the theory of writing systems, of text, and of language as such. Throughout, questions concerning the aestheticization of this kind of computational exploration and visualization may also be addressed. His website is programmatology.com. </span></span><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Computational%20art%20Explorations%20of%20Linguistic%20Possibility%20Spaces%3A%20comparative%20translingual%20close%20readings%20of%20Daniel%20C.%20Howe%E2%80%99s%20Automatype%20and%20Radical%20of%20the%20Vertical%20Heart%20忄&rft.jtitle=Digital%20Humanities%20Quarterly&rft.stitle=DHQ&rft.issn=1938-4122&rft.date=2023-07-20&rft.volume=017&rft.issue=2&rft.aulast=Cayley&rft.aufirst=John&rft.au=John%20Cayley"> </span></div> <div class="articleInfo" style="margin:0 0 1em 0;"><span class="monospace">[en] </span><a href="/dhq/vol/17/2/000707/000707.html">“Any Means Necessary to Refuse Erasure by Algorithm:” Lillian-Yvonne Bertram’s Travesty Generator</a><div style="padding-left:1em; margin:0;text-indent:-1em;">Zach Whalen, University of Mary Washington</div><span class="viewAbstract">Abstract <span class="viewAbstract monospace" style="display:inline" id="abstractExpanderabstract000707en"><a title="View Abstract" class="expandCollapse monospace" href="javascript:expandAbstract('abstract000707en')">[en]</a></span><span style="display:none" class="abstract" id="abstract000707en"> Lillian-Yvonne Bertram's 2019 book of poetry is titled <cite class="italic">Travesty Generator</cite> in reference to Hugh Kenner and Joseph O'Rourke's Pascal program to “fabricate pseudo-text” by producing text such that each n-length string of characters in the output occurs at the same frequency as in the source text. Whereas for Kenner and O'Rourke, labeling their work a “travesty” is a hyperbolic tease or a literary burlesque, for Bertram, the travesty is the political reality of racism in America. For each of the works <cite class="italic">Travesty Generator</cite>, Bertram uses the generators of computer poetry to critique, resist, and replace narratives of oppression and to make explicit and specific what is elsewhere algorithmically insidious and ambivalent. In “Counternarratives”, Bertram presents sentences, fragments, and ellipses that begin ambiguously but gradually resolve point clearly to the moment of Trayvon Martin's killing. The poem that opens the book, “three_last_words”, is at a functional level a near-echo of the program in Nick Montfort's “I AM THAT I AM”, which is itself a version or adaptation of Brion Gysin's permutation poem of the same title. But Bertram’s poem has one important functional difference in that Bertram's version retains and concatenates the entire working result. With this modification, the memory required to produce all permutations of the phrase, “I can’t breathe”, is sufficiently greater than the storage available most computers, so the poem will end in a crashed runtime or a frozen computer--metaphorically reenacting and memorializing Eric Garner’s death. Lillian-Yvonne Bertram's <cite class="italic">Travesty Generator</cite> is a challenging, haunting, and important achievement of computational literature, and in this essay, I expand my reading of this book to dig more broadly and deeply into how specific poems work to better appreciate the collection's contribution to the field of digital poetry. </span></span><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Any%20Means%20Necessary%20to%20Refuse%20Erasure%20by%20Algorithm%3A%20Lillian-Yvonne%20Bertram%E2%80%99s%20Travesty%20Generator&rft.jtitle=Digital%20Humanities%20Quarterly&rft.stitle=DHQ&rft.issn=1938-4122&rft.date=2023-07-20&rft.volume=017&rft.issue=2&rft.aulast=Whalen&rft.aufirst=Zach&rft.au=Zach%20Whalen"> </span></div> <div class="articleInfo" style="margin:0 0 1em 0;"><span class="monospace">[en] </span><a href="/dhq/vol/17/2/000693/000693.html">Poetry as Code as Interactive Fiction: Engaging Multiple Text-Based Literacies in <cite class="italic">Scarlet Portrait Parlor</cite></a><div style="padding-left:1em; margin:0;text-indent:-1em;">Jason Boyd, Toronto Metropolitan University</div><span class="viewAbstract">Abstract <span class="viewAbstract monospace" style="display:inline" id="abstractExpanderabstract000693en"><a title="View Abstract" class="expandCollapse monospace" href="javascript:expandAbstract('abstract000693en')">[en]</a></span><span style="display:none" class="abstract" id="abstract000693en"> In Prismatik’s <cite class="italic">Scarlet Portrait Parlor</cite> (2020) poetry and code uncannily appear one and the same. This results in a work that is both familiar and strange, and this, along with<cite class="italic">Scarlet Portrait Parlor</cite>’s brevity, simplicity of construction, and immediate recognizability as a work of literature (a sonnet) that is also executable source code producing a work of electronic literature, has the potential to intrigue students and textual scholars unfamiliar with and perhaps resistant to Critical Code Studies (CCS). A study of Prismatik’s work also has the potential to refine some simplistic judgements in CCS scholarship about the efficacy of code that emulates natural, human language. This case study aims to elaborate the value of <cite class="italic">Scarlet Portrait Parlor</cite> as a rich example of how poetry, programming, and interactive fiction can be intertwined if not blurred in a single text and to act as a catalyst for generative discussions about the overlapping and intertwining of natural languages, programming languages, creative writing, and coding. </span></span><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Poetry%20as%20Code%20as%20Interactive%20Fiction%3A%20Engaging%20Multiple%20Text-Based%20Literacies%20in%20Scarlet%20Portrait%20Parlor&rft.jtitle=Digital%20Humanities%20Quarterly&rft.stitle=DHQ&rft.issn=1938-4122&rft.date=2023-07-20&rft.volume=017&rft.issue=2&rft.aulast=Boyd&rft.aufirst=Jason&rft.au=Jason%20Boyd"> </span></div> </div> <div class="cluster"> <h3>Code Legibility and Critical AI</h3> <div class="articleInfo" style="margin:0 0 1em 0;"><span class="monospace">[en] </span><a href="/dhq/vol/17/2/000684/000684.html">How to Do Things with Deep Learning Code</a><div style="padding-left:1em; margin:0;text-indent:-1em;">Minh Hua, Johns Hopkins University; Rita Raley, University of California, Santa Barbara</div><span class="viewAbstract">Abstract <span class="viewAbstract monospace" style="display:inline" id="abstractExpanderabstract000684en"><a title="View Abstract" class="expandCollapse monospace" href="javascript:expandAbstract('abstract000684en')">[en]</a></span><span style="display:none" class="abstract" id="abstract000684en"> The premise of this article is that a basic understanding of the composition and functioning of large language models is critically urgent. To that end, we extract a representational map of OpenAI’s GPT-2 with what we articulate as two classes of deep learning code, that which pertains to the model and that which underwrites applications built around the model. We then verify this map through case studies of two popular GPT-2 applications: the text adventure game, <cite class="italic">AI Dungeon</cite>, and the language art project, <cite class="italic">This Word Does Not Exist</cite>. Such an exercise allows us to test the potential of Critical Code Studies when the object of study is deep learning code and to demonstrate the validity of code as an analytical focus for researchers in the subfields of Critical Artificial Intelligence and Critical Machine Learning Studies. More broadly, however, our work draws attention to the means by which ordinary users might interact with, and even direct, the behavior of deep learning systems, and by extension works toward demystifying some of the auratic mystery of “AI.” What is at stake is the possibility of achieving an informed sociotechnical consensus about the responsible applications of large language models, as well as a more expansive sense of their creative capabilities — indeed, understanding how and where engagement occurs allows all of us to become more active participants in the development of machine learning systems. </span></span><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=How%20to%20Do%20Things%20with%20Deep%20Learning%20Code&rft.jtitle=Digital%20Humanities%20Quarterly&rft.stitle=DHQ&rft.issn=1938-4122&rft.date=2023-06-22&rft.volume=017&rft.issue=2&rft.aulast=Hua&rft.aufirst=Minh&rft.au=Minh%20Hua&rft.au=Rita%20Raley"> </span></div> <div class="articleInfo" style="margin:0 0 1em 0;"><span class="monospace">[en] </span><a href="/dhq/vol/17/2/000706/000706.html">Tracing “Toxicity” Through Code: Towards a Method of Explainability and Interpretability in Software</a><div style="padding-left:1em; margin:0;text-indent:-1em;">David M. Berry, University of Sussex</div><span class="viewAbstract">Abstract <span class="viewAbstract monospace" style="display:inline" id="abstractExpanderabstract000706en"><a title="View Abstract" class="expandCollapse monospace" href="javascript:expandAbstract('abstract000706en')">[en]</a></span><span style="display:none" class="abstract" id="abstract000706en"> The ubiquity of digital technologies in citizen’s lives marks a major qualitative shift where automated decisions taken by algorithms deeply affect the lived experience of ordinary people. But this is not just an action-oriented change as computational systems can also introduce epistemological transformations in the constitution of concepts and ideas. However, a lack of public understanding of how algorithms work also makes them a source of distrust, especially concerning the way in which they can be used to create frames or channels for social and individual behaviour. This public concern has been magnified by election hacking, social media disinformation, data extractivism, and a sense that Silicon Valley companies are out of control. The wide adoption of algorithms into so many aspects of peoples’ lives, often without public debate, has meant that increasingly algorithms are seen as mysterious and opaque, when they are not seen as inequitable or biased. Up until recently it has been difficult to challenge algorithms or to question their functioning, especially with wide acceptance that software’s inner workings were incomprehensible, proprietary or secret (cf. open source). Asking why an algorithm did what it did often was not thought particularly interesting outside of a strictly programming context. This meant that there has been a widening explanatory gap in relation to understanding algorithms and their effect on peoples’ lived experiences. This paper argues that Critical Code Studies offers a novel field for developing theoretical and code-epistemological practices to reflect on the explanatory deficit in modern societies from a reliance on information technologies. The challenge of new forms of social obscurity from the implementation of technical systems is heightened by the example of machine learning systems that have emerged in the past decade. A key methodological contribution of this paper is to show how concept formation, in this case of the notion of “toxicity,” can be traced through key categories and classifications deployed in code structures (e.g. modularity and layering software) but also how these classifications can appear more stable than they actually are by the tendency of software layers to obscure even as they reveal. How a concept such as “toxicity” can be constituted through code and discourse and then used unproblematically is revealing in relation to both its technical deployment but also for a possible computational sociology of knowledge. By developing a broadened notion of explainability, this paper argues that critical code studies can make important theoretical, code-epistemological and methodological contributions to digital humanities, computer science and related disciplines. </span></span><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Tracing%20Toxicity%20Through%20Code%3A%20Towards%20a%20Method%20of%20Explainability%20and%20Interpretability%20in%20Software&rft.jtitle=Digital%20Humanities%20Quarterly&rft.stitle=DHQ&rft.issn=1938-4122&rft.date=2023-07-20&rft.volume=017&rft.issue=2&rft.aulast=Berry&rft.aufirst=David M.&rft.au=David M.%20Berry"> </span></div> <div class="articleInfo" style="margin:0 0 1em 0;"><span class="monospace">[en] </span><a href="/dhq/vol/17/2/000702/000702.html">Nonsense Code: A Nonmaterial Performance</a><div style="padding-left:1em; margin:0;text-indent:-1em;">Barry Rountree, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; William Condee, Ohio University</div><span class="viewAbstract">Abstract <span class="viewAbstract monospace" style="display:inline" id="abstractExpanderabstract000702en"><a title="View Abstract" class="expandCollapse monospace" href="javascript:expandAbstract('abstract000702en')">[en]</a></span><span style="display:none" class="abstract" id="abstract000702en"> Critical Code Studies often relies on the textual representation of code in order to derive extra-textual significance, with less focus on how code performs and in what contexts. In this paper we analyze three case studies in which a literal reading of each program’s code is effectively nonsense. In their performance, however, the programs generate meaning. To discern this meaning, we use the framework of nonmaterial performance (NMP), which is based on four tenets: code abstracts, code performs, code acts within a network, and code is vibrant. We begin with what is to our knowledge the oldest example of nonsense code: a program (now lost) from the 1950s that caused a Univac 1 computer to hum “Happy Birthday”. Second, we critique Firestarter, a processor stress test from the Technical University of Dresden. Finally, we analyze one of the family of processor power side-channel attacks known collectively as Platypus. In each case, the text of the code is a wholly unreliable guide to its extra-textual significance. This paper builds on work in Critical Code Studies by bringing in methodologies from actor-network theory and political science, examining code from a performance-studies perspective and with expertise from computer science. Code can certainly be read as literature, but ultimately it is text written to be performed. Imagining and observing the performance forces the critic to engage with the code in its own network. The three examples we have chosen to critique here are outliers---very little code in the world is purposed to manipulate the physical machine. Nonsense shows us the opportunity that nonmaterial performance creates: to decenter text from privileged position and to recenter code as a performance. </span></span><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Nonsense%20Code%3A%20A%20Nonmaterial%20Performance&rft.jtitle=Digital%20Humanities%20Quarterly&rft.stitle=DHQ&rft.issn=1938-4122&rft.date=2023-07-20&rft.volume=017&rft.issue=2&rft.aulast=Rountree&rft.aufirst=Barry&rft.au=Barry%20Rountree&rft.au=William%20Condee"> </span></div> </div> <div class="cluster"> <h3>Code Languages and Linguistics</h3> <div class="articleInfo" style="margin:0 0 1em 0;"><span class="monospace">[en] </span><a href="/dhq/vol/17/2/000699/000699.html">ᐊᒐᐦᑭᐯᐦᐃᑲᓇ ᒫᒥᑐᓀᔨᐦᐃᒋᑲᓂᐦᑳᓂᕽ | acahkipehikana mâmitoneyihicikanihkânihk | Programming with Cree# and <cite class="none">Ancestral Code</cite>: Nehiyawewin Spirit Markings in an Artificial Brain</a><div style="padding-left:1em; margin:0;text-indent:-1em;">Jon Corbett, Simon Fraser University</div><span class="viewAbstract">Abstract <span class="viewAbstract monospace" style="display:inline" id="abstractExpanderabstract000699en"><a title="View Abstract" class="expandCollapse monospace" href="javascript:expandAbstract('abstract000699en')">[en]</a></span><span style="display:none" class="abstract" id="abstract000699en"> In this article, I discuss my project “Ancestral Code”, which consists of an integrated development environment (IDE) and the Nehiyaw (Plains Cree) based programming languages called <cite class="none">Cree#</cite> (pronounced: Cree-Sharp) and <cite class="none">ᐊᒋᒧ</cite> (âcimow). These languages developed in response to western perspectives on human-computer relationships, which I challenge and reframe in Nehiyaw/Indigenous contexts. </span></span><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=ᐊᒐᐦᑭᐯᐦᐃᑲᓇ%20ᒫᒥᑐᓀᔨᐦᐃᒋᑲᓂᐦᑳᓂᕽ%20|%20acahkipehikana%20mâmitoneyihicikanihkânihk%20|%20Programming%20with%20Cree%23%20and%20Ancestral%20Code%3A%20Nehiyawewin%20Spirit%20Markings%20in%20an%20Artificial%20Brain&rft.jtitle=Digital%20Humanities%20Quarterly&rft.stitle=DHQ&rft.issn=1938-4122&rft.date=2023-07-20&rft.volume=017&rft.issue=2&rft.aulast=Corbett&rft.aufirst=Jon&rft.au=Jon%20Corbett"> </span></div> <div class="articleInfo" style="margin:0 0 1em 0;"><span class="monospace">[en] </span><a href="/dhq/vol/17/2/000698/000698.html">The Less Humble Programmer</a><div style="padding-left:1em; margin:0;text-indent:-1em;">Daniel Temkin, Bard College</div><span class="viewAbstract">Abstract <span class="viewAbstract monospace" style="display:inline" id="abstractExpanderabstract000698en"><a title="View Abstract" class="expandCollapse monospace" href="javascript:expandAbstract('abstract000698en')">[en]</a></span><span style="display:none" class="abstract" id="abstract000698en"> Esoteric programming languages (esolangs) break from the norms of language design by explicitly refusing practicality and clarity. While some go even further and make code impossible to write (e.g. Unnecessary), others (e.g. Malboge) retains the ability to express functional and reliable code, despite the seeming disorder of the language. To understand the conversation these languages are having, we must look at how they challenge or re-affirm wider ideas in programming culture and in how computer science is taught: specifically the sometimes-contradictory aesthetics of Humbleness and Computational Idealism. </span></span><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=The%20Less%20Humble%20Programmer&rft.jtitle=Digital%20Humanities%20Quarterly&rft.stitle=DHQ&rft.issn=1938-4122&rft.date=2023-07-20&rft.volume=017&rft.issue=2&rft.aulast=Temkin&rft.aufirst=Daniel&rft.au=Daniel%20Temkin"> </span></div> </div> <h2>Tools Criticism</h2> <div class="cluster"><h3>Editor: Peter Verhaar</h3></div> <div class="cluster"><h3>Articles</h3> <div class="articleInfo" style="margin:0 0 1em 0;"><span class="monospace">[en] </span><a href="/dhq/vol/17/2/000685/000685.html">The Explainability Turn</a><div style="padding-left:1em; margin:0;text-indent:-1em;">David M. Berry, University of Sussex</div><span class="viewAbstract">Abstract <span class="viewAbstract monospace" style="display:inline" id="abstractExpanderabstract000685en"><a title="View Abstract" class="expandCollapse monospace" href="javascript:expandAbstract('abstract000685en')">[en]</a></span><span style="display:none" class="abstract" id="abstract000685en"> How can we know what our computational infrastructures are doing to us? More to the point, how can we have any confidence that their effects on our minds are positive rather than negative? Certainly, it is the case that digital infrastructures combined with spatial and temporal organisation create forms of digitally-enabled structures that serve to change the cognitive capacity of humans. How then to assess these new digital infrastructures and machine learning systems? One of the most difficult tasks facing the critical theorist today is understanding the delegation and prescription of agency in digital infrastructures. These are capital intensive systems and hence tend to be developed by corporations or governments in order to combine multiple systems into a single unity. The systems they build are often difficult if not impossible to understand and require the public to trust but not to be able to verify the system decisions. In contrast, recent moves to assuage worries over the opaque and threatening potential of computation have been partially addressed through a new legal right to challenge algorithms and their decisions. This requirement, termed “explainability,” I suggest might contribute to tool criticism within digital humanities for investigating and potentially challenging these assemblages and creating a potential for democratic contestation. </span></span><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=The%20Explainability%20Turn&rft.jtitle=Digital%20Humanities%20Quarterly&rft.stitle=DHQ&rft.issn=1938-4122&rft.date=2023-07-07&rft.volume=017&rft.issue=2&rft.aulast=Berry&rft.aufirst=David M.&rft.au=David M.%20Berry"> </span></div> <div class="articleInfo" style="margin:0 0 1em 0;"><span class="monospace">[en] </span><a href="/dhq/vol/17/2/000686/000686.html"> Distant Reading and Viewing: “Big Questions” in Digital Art History and Digital Literary Studies</a><div style="padding-left:1em; margin:0;text-indent:-1em;">Ruta Binkyte, Inria Saclay - Île-de-France Research Centre, Institut Polytechnique de Paris</div><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Distant%20Reading%20and%20Viewing%3A%20Big%20Questions%20in%20Digital%20Art%20History%20and%20Digital%20Literary%20Studies&rft.jtitle=Digital%20Humanities%20Quarterly&rft.stitle=DHQ&rft.issn=1938-4122&rft.date=2023-07-07&rft.volume=017&rft.issue=2&rft.aulast=Binkyte&rft.aufirst=Ruta&rft.au=Ruta%20Binkyte"> </span></div> <div class="articleInfo" style="margin:0 0 1em 0;"><span class="monospace">[en] </span><a href="/dhq/vol/17/2/000687/000687.html">Tool criticism in practice. On methods, tools and aims of computational literary studies</a><div style="padding-left:1em; margin:0;text-indent:-1em;">J. Berenike Herrmann, Universität Bielefeld; Anne-Sophie Bories, University of Basel; Francesca Frontini, CNR - Istituto di Linguistica Computazionale A. Zampolli; Clèmence Jacquot; Steffen Pielström, University of Würzburg; Simone Rebora, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz; Geoffrey Rockwell, University of Alberta; Stéfan Sinclair</div><span class="viewAbstract">Abstract <span class="viewAbstract monospace" style="display:inline" id="abstractExpanderabstract000687en"><a title="View Abstract" class="expandCollapse monospace" href="javascript:expandAbstract('abstract000687en')">[en]</a></span><span style="display:none" class="abstract" id="abstract000687en"> This paper is a case-driven contribution to the discussion on the method-theory relationship in practices within the field of Computational Literary Studies (CLS). Progress in this field dedicated to the computational analysis of literary texts has long revolved around the new, digital tools: tools, as computational devices for analysis, have had here a comparatively strong status as research entities of their own, while their ontological status has remained unclear to the day. As a rule, they have widely been imported from the fields of data science and NLP, while less often being hand-tailored to specific tasks within interdisciplinary settings. Although studies within CLS are evolving to both a higher degree of specialization in method (going beyond the limitations of out-of-the-box tools) and a stronger theoretical modeling, the technological dimension remains a defining factor. An unreflective adoption of technology in the shape of tools can compromise the plausibility and the reproducibility of the results produced using these tools. Our paper presents a multi-faceted intervention to the discussion around tools, methods, and the research questions that are answered with them. It presents research perspectives first conceived at the ADHO SIG-DLS workshop <cite class="italic">Anatomy of tools: A closer look at textual DH methodologies</cite> that took place in Utrecht in July 2019. At that event, the authors discussed selected case studies to address tool criticism from several angles. Our goal was to leverage a tool-critical perspective, in order to “take stock, reflect upon and critically comment upon our own practices” within CLS. We identified Textométrie, Stylometry, and Semantic Text Mining as three central types of hands-on CLS. For each of these sub-fields, we asked: What are our tools and methods-in-use? What are the implications of using a tool-oriented perspective as opposed to a methodology-oriented one? How do either relate to research questions and theory? These questions were explored by case-studies on an exemplary basis. The unifying perspective of this paper is an applied tool criticism – a critical inquiry leveraged towards crucial dimensions of CLS practices. Here we re-compose the original oral papers and add entirely new sections to it, to create a useful overview of the issue through a combination of perspectives. While we elaborated the thematic connections between the individual case studies, we hope the interactive spirit of an exemplary exchange remains palpable: individual research perspectives shape the case studies reported for Textométrie, Stylometry and Semantic Text Mining, are complemented by further studies showcasing CLS-specific perspectives on replicability and domain-specific research, and a short section discussing a tool inventory as a practical, community-based incarnation of tool criticism. The article reflects thus a rich array of perspectives on tool criticism, including the complementary perspective of tool defense – arguing that we need tools and methods as a basic common ground on how to carry out fundamental operations of analysis and interpretation within a community. </span></span><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Tool%20criticism%20in%20practice.%20On%20methods,%20tools%20and%20aims%20of%20computational%20literary%20studies&rft.jtitle=Digital%20Humanities%20Quarterly&rft.stitle=DHQ&rft.issn=1938-4122&rft.date=2023-07-07&rft.volume=017&rft.issue=2&rft.aulast=Herrmann&rft.aufirst=J. Berenike&rft.au=J. Berenike%20Herrmann&rft.au=Anne-Sophie%20Bories&rft.au=Francesca%20Frontini&rft.au=Clèmence%20Jacquot&rft.au=Steffen%20Pielström&rft.au=Simone%20Rebora&rft.au=Geoffrey%20Rockwell&rft.au=Stéfan%20Sinclair"> </span></div> <div class="articleInfo" style="margin:0 0 1em 0;"><span class="monospace">[en] </span><a href="/dhq/vol/17/2/000688/000688.html">Slow Listening: Digital Tools for Voice Studies</a><div style="padding-left:1em; margin:0;text-indent:-1em;">Marit J. MacArthur, University of California, Davis; Lee M. Miller, University of California, Davis</div><span class="viewAbstract">Abstract <span class="viewAbstract monospace" style="display:inline" id="abstractExpanderabstract000688en"><a title="View Abstract" class="expandCollapse monospace" href="javascript:expandAbstract('abstract000688en')">[en]</a></span><span style="display:none" class="abstract" id="abstract000688en"> Sound studies in general, and voice studies in particular, present particular challenges for digital humanities scholarship. The software tools available to digital humanists who want to study performative speech are less familiar and less developed for our uses, and the user base is also much smaller than for text mining or network analysis. This article provides a critical narrative of our research and an outline of our methodology, in applying, developing and refining tools for the analysis of pitch and timing patterns in recorded performances of literary texts. The primary texts and audio considered are poetry readings, but the tools and methods can and have been applied more widely to podcasts, talking books, political speeches, etc. </span></span><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Slow%20Listening%3A%20Digital Tools%20for%20Voice%20Studies&rft.jtitle=Digital%20Humanities%20Quarterly&rft.stitle=DHQ&rft.issn=1938-4122&rft.date=2023-07-07&rft.volume=017&rft.issue=2&rft.aulast=MacArthur&rft.aufirst=Marit J.&rft.au=Marit J.%20MacArthur&rft.au=Lee M.%20Miller"> </span></div> <div class="articleInfo" style="margin:0 0 1em 0;"><span class="monospace">[en] </span><a href="/dhq/vol/17/2/000689/000689.html">Bias in Big Data, Machine Learning and AI: What Lessons for the Digital Humanities?</a><div style="padding-left:1em; margin:0;text-indent:-1em;">Andrew Prescott, University of Glasgow</div><span class="viewAbstract">Abstract <span class="viewAbstract monospace" style="display:inline" id="abstractExpanderabstract000689en"><a title="View Abstract" class="expandCollapse monospace" href="javascript:expandAbstract('abstract000689en')">[en]</a></span><span style="display:none" class="abstract" id="abstract000689en"> This article surveys the ways in which issues of race and gender bias emerge in projects involving the use of predictive analytics, big data and artificial intelligence (AI). It analyses some of the reasons biased results occur and argues for the importance of open documentation and explainability in combatting these inequities. Digital humanities can make a significant contribution in addressing these issues. This article was written in late 2020, and discussion and public debate about AI and bias has moved on enormously since the article was completed. Nevertheless, the fundamental proposition of this article has become even more important and pressing as debates around AI have progressed – namely, that as a result of the development of big data and AI, it is vital to foster critical and socially aware approaches to the construction and analysis of data. The greatest threat to humanity from AI comes not from autonomous killer robots but rather from the social dislocation and injustices caused by an overreliance on poorly designed and badly documented commercial black boxes to administer everything from health care to public order and crime. </span></span><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Bias%20in%20Big%20Data,%20Machine%20Learning%20and%20AI%3A%20What%20Lessons%20for%20the%20Digital%20Humanities%3F&rft.jtitle=Digital%20Humanities%20Quarterly&rft.stitle=DHQ&rft.issn=1938-4122&rft.date=2023-07-07&rft.volume=017&rft.issue=2&rft.aulast=Prescott&rft.aufirst=Andrew&rft.au=Andrew%20Prescott"> </span></div> <div class="articleInfo" style="margin:0 0 1em 0;"><span class="monospace">[en] </span><a href="/dhq/vol/17/2/000690/000690.html">The Politics of Tools</a><div style="padding-left:1em; margin:0;text-indent:-1em;">Stephen Ramsay, University of Nebraska-Lincoln</div><span class="viewAbstract">Abstract <span class="viewAbstract monospace" style="display:inline" id="abstractExpanderabstract000690en"><a title="View Abstract" class="expandCollapse monospace" href="javascript:expandAbstract('abstract000690en')">[en]</a></span><span style="display:none" class="abstract" id="abstract000690en"> A consideration of the political meaning of software that tries to add greater philosophical precision to statements about the politics of tools and tool building in the humanities. Using Michael Oakeshott's formulations of the “politics of faith” and the “politics of skepticism,” it suggests that while declaring our tools be morally or political neutral may be obvious fallacious, it is equally problematic to suppose that we can predict in advance the political formations that will arise from our tool building. For indeed (as Oakeshott suggests), the tools themselves give rise to what is politically possible. </span></span><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=The%20Politics%20of%20Tools&rft.jtitle=Digital%20Humanities%20Quarterly&rft.stitle=DHQ&rft.issn=1938-4122&rft.date=2023-07-07&rft.volume=017&rft.issue=2&rft.aulast=Ramsay&rft.aufirst=Stephen&rft.au=Stephen%20Ramsay"> </span></div> <div class="articleInfo" style="margin:0 0 1em 0;"><span class="monospace">[en] </span><a href="/dhq/vol/17/2/000691/000691.html">Sentiment Analysis in Literary Studies. A Critical Survey</a><div style="padding-left:1em; margin:0;text-indent:-1em;">Simone Rebora, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz</div><span class="viewAbstract">Abstract <span class="viewAbstract monospace" style="display:inline" id="abstractExpanderabstract000691en"><a title="View Abstract" class="expandCollapse monospace" href="javascript:expandAbstract('abstract000691en')">[en]</a></span><span style="display:none" class="abstract" id="abstract000691en"> The article sets up a critique of Sentiment Analysis (SA) tools in literary studies, both from a theoretical and a computational point of view. In the first section, a possible use of SA in narratology and reader response studies is discussed, highlighting the gaps between literary theories and computational models, and suggesting possible solutions to fill them. In the second section, a stratified taxonomy of SA tools is proposed, which distinguishes: (1) the emotion theory adopted by the tool; (2) the method used to build the emotion resources; (3) the technique adopted to accomplish the analysis. A critical survey of six representative SA tools for literary studies (Syuzhet, Vader, SentiArt, SEANCE, Stanford SA, and Transformers Pipelines) closes the article. </span></span><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Sentiment%20Analysis%20in%20Literary%20Studies.%20A%20Critical%20Survey&rft.jtitle=Digital%20Humanities%20Quarterly&rft.stitle=DHQ&rft.issn=1938-4122&rft.date=2023-07-07&rft.volume=017&rft.issue=2&rft.aulast=Rebora&rft.aufirst=Simone&rft.au=Simone%20Rebora"> </span></div> <div class="articleInfo" style="margin:0 0 1em 0;"><span class="monospace">[en] </span><a href="/dhq/vol/17/2/000692/000692.html">Unpacking tool criticism as practice, in practice</a><div style="padding-left:1em; margin:0;text-indent:-1em;">Karin van Es, Utrecht University</div><span class="viewAbstract">Abstract <span class="viewAbstract monospace" style="display:inline" id="abstractExpanderabstract000692en"><a title="View Abstract" class="expandCollapse monospace" href="javascript:expandAbstract('abstract000692en')">[en]</a></span><span style="display:none" class="abstract" id="abstract000692en"> Thanks to easy-to-use data analysis tools and digital infrastructures, even those humanities scholars who lack programming skills can work with large-scale empirical datasets in order to disclose patterns and correlations within them. Although empirical research trends have existed throughout the history of the humanities , these recently emergent possibilities have revived an empiricist attitude among humanities scholars schooled in more critical and interpretive traditions. Replying to calls for a critical digital humanities , this paper explores “tool criticism” – a critical attitude required of digital humanities scholars when working with computational tools and digital infrastructures. First, it explores tool criticism as a response to instrumentalism in the digital humanities and proposes it to be part of what a critical digital humanities does. Second, it analyses tool criticism as practice, in practice. Concretely, it discusses two critical making–inspired workshops in which participants explored the affordances of digital tools and infrastructures and their underlying assumptions and values. The first workshop focused on “games-as-tools” . Participants in the workshop engaged with the constraints, material and mechanical, of a card game by making modifications to it. In the second workshop, drawing on the concept of “digital infrapuncture” , participants examined digital infrastructure in terms of capacity and care. After first identifying “hurt” in a chat environment, they then designed bots to intervene in that hurt and offer relief. </span></span><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Unpacking%20tool%20criticism%20as%20practice,%20in%20practice&rft.jtitle=Digital%20Humanities%20Quarterly&rft.stitle=DHQ&rft.issn=1938-4122&rft.date=2023-07-07&rft.volume=017&rft.issue=2&rft.aulast=van Es&rft.aufirst=Karin&rft.au=Karin%20van Es"> </span></div> </div> <h2>Articles</h2> <div class="articleInfo" style="margin:0 0 1em 0;"><span class="monospace">[en] </span><a href="/dhq/vol/17/2/000676/000676.html">Computational Paremiology: Charting the temporal, ecological dynamics of proverb use in books, news articles, and tweets</a><div style="padding-left:1em; margin:0;text-indent:-1em;">Ethan Davis, Computational Story Lab, Vermont Complex Systems Center, MassMutual Center of Excellence for Complex Systems and Data Science, Vermont Advanced Computing Core, Watzek Library, Lewis & Clark College; Christopher Danforth, Computational Story Lab, Vermont Complex Systems Center, MassMutual Center of Excellence for Complex Systems and Data Science, Vermont Advanced Computing Core, Department of Mathematics & Statistics, University of Vermont; Wolfgang Mieder, Department of German & Russian, University of Vermont; Peter Sheridan Dodds, Computational Story Lab, Vermont Complex Systems Center, MassMutual Center of Excellence for Complex Systems and Data Science, Vermont Advanced Computing Core, Department of Computer Science, University of Vermont, Santa Fe Institute</div><span class="viewAbstract">Abstract <span class="viewAbstract monospace" style="display:inline" id="abstractExpanderabstract000676en"><a title="View Abstract" class="expandCollapse monospace" href="javascript:expandAbstract('abstract000676en')">[en]</a></span><span style="display:none" class="abstract" id="abstract000676en"> Proverbs are an essential component of language and culture, and though much attention has been paid to their history and currency, there has been comparatively little quantitative work on changes in the frequency with which they are used over time. With wider availability of large corpora reflecting many diverse genres of documents, it is now possible to take a broad and dynamic view of the importance of the proverb. Here, we measure temporal changes in the relevance of proverbs within four corpora, differing in kind, scale, and time frame: Millions of books over centuries; thousands of books over centuries; millions of news articles over twenty years; and billions of tweets over a decade. While similar methodologies abound lately, they have not yet been performed using comprehensive phraseological lexica (here, <cite class="italic">The Dictionary of American Proverbs</cite>). We show that beyond simple partitioning of texts into words, searches for culturally significant phrases can yield distinct insights from the same corpora. Comparative analysis between four commonly used corpora show that each reveals its own relationship to the phenomena being studied. We also find that the frequency with which proverbs appear in texts follows a similar distribution to that of individual words. </span></span><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Computational%20Paremiology%3A%20Charting%20the%20temporal,%20ecological%20dynamics%20of%20proverb%20use%20in%20books,%20news%20articles,%20and%20tweets&rft.jtitle=Digital%20Humanities%20Quarterly&rft.stitle=DHQ&rft.issn=1938-4122&rft.date=2023-05-26&rft.volume=017&rft.issue=2&rft.aulast=Davis&rft.aufirst=Ethan&rft.au=Ethan%20Davis&rft.au=Christopher%20Danforth&rft.au=Wolfgang%20Mieder&rft.au=Peter Sheridan%20Dodds"> </span></div> <div class="articleInfo" style="margin:0 0 1em 0;"><span class="monospace">[en] </span><a href="/dhq/vol/17/2/000679/000679.html">Historical GIS and Guidebooks: A Scalable Reading of Czechoslovak Tourist Attractions</a><div style="padding-left:1em; margin:0;text-indent:-1em;">Sune Bechmann Pedersen, Stockholm University; Mathias Johansson, Lund University</div><span class="viewAbstract">Abstract <span class="viewAbstract monospace" style="display:inline" id="abstractExpanderabstract000679en"><a title="View Abstract" class="expandCollapse monospace" href="javascript:expandAbstract('abstract000679en')">[en]</a></span><span style="display:none" class="abstract" id="abstract000679en"> This article demonstrates the value of “scalable reading” of historical travel guides, combining traditional close reading with computer-assisted distant reading. Aiming to scrutinize the persistence of older tourist attractions under communism, we analyse guidebooks intended for similar audiences but produced under different political regimes. More specifically, we compare three travel guides to the same geographical area produced between 1905 and 1959: one to communist cold war Czechoslovakia, one to democratic interwar Czechoslovakia, and one to the Habsburg-era Czech lands and Slovakia. We analyse the geographic distribution of attractions by geolocating the guidebook toponyms and visualizing them with Geographic Information Systems (GIS). This distant reading is complemented with a hermeneutic analysis grounded in a close reading of the guidebook text. The combination of these approaches documents the similarities in the symbolic representation of the country’s attractions across political caesuras and provides a methodological template for future explorations of travel guides with historical GIS. </span></span><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Historical%20GIS%20and%20Guidebooks%3A%20A%20Scalable%20Reading%20of%20Czechoslovak%20Tourist%20Attractions&rft.jtitle=Digital%20Humanities%20Quarterly&rft.stitle=DHQ&rft.issn=1938-4122&rft.date=2023-05-26&rft.volume=017&rft.issue=2&rft.aulast=Bechmann Pedersen&rft.aufirst=Sune&rft.au=Sune%20Bechmann Pedersen&rft.au=Mathias%20Johansson"> </span></div> <div class="articleInfo" style="margin:0 0 1em 0;"><span class="monospace">[en] </span><a href="/dhq/vol/17/2/000652/000652.html">An Integral Web-map for the Analysis of Spatial Change over Time in a Complex Built Environment: Digital Samos</a><div style="padding-left:1em; margin:0;text-indent:-1em;">Estefanía López Salas, Universidade da Coruña</div><span class="viewAbstract">Abstract <span class="viewAbstract monospace" style="display:inline" id="abstractExpanderabstract000652en"><a title="View Abstract" class="expandCollapse monospace" href="javascript:expandAbstract('abstract000652en')">[en]</a></span><span style="display:none" class="abstract" id="abstract000652en"> The paper focuses on a prototype interactive web-map developed for the presentation and dissemination of architectural transformations at the monastic site of San Julián de Samos in north-western Spain. The paper’s central argument offers a response to questions regarding why and how to create an interactive web-map in the field of architectural history through a particular case study. The paper is organized into three main parts. It first presents the project focus on spatiotemporal analysis of a centuries-old Spanish monastic site. Second part is devoted to the specific domain of web-mapping tools and why they can help us to better make sense of complex built environments that humans have formed and re-formed over time. After that, we explain how we faced the process of creating an integral scientific web-map that goes beyond static 2D representations of a multi-layered past physical realm in a definitive publication, the challenges we faced, and the proposed future developments. The prototype web-map of Digital Samos integrates the graphic features of spatial objects with source data in a web publication platform where the reader is granted accessed to fully uncover, interact with, and learn about a historically rich monastic palimpsest. </span></span><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=An%20Integral%20Web-map%20for%20the%20Analysis%20of%20Spatial%20Change%20over%20Time%20in%20a%20Complex%20Built%20Environment%3A%20Digital%20Samos&rft.jtitle=Digital%20Humanities%20Quarterly&rft.stitle=DHQ&rft.issn=1938-4122&rft.date=2023-05-26&rft.volume=017&rft.issue=2&rft.aulast=López Salas&rft.aufirst=Estefanía&rft.au=Estefanía%20López Salas"> </span></div> <div class="articleInfo" style="margin:0 0 1em 0;"><span class="monospace">[en] </span><a href="/dhq/vol/17/2/000675/000675.html">SEDES: Metrical Position in Greek Hexameter</a><div style="padding-left:1em; margin:0;text-indent:-1em;">Stephen A. Sansom, Florida State University; David Fifield, Independent Scholar</div><span class="viewAbstract">Abstract <span class="viewAbstract monospace" style="display:inline" id="abstractExpanderabstract000675en"><a title="View Abstract" class="expandCollapse monospace" href="javascript:expandAbstract('abstract000675en')">[en]</a></span><span style="display:none" class="abstract" id="abstract000675en"> This article outlines the processes of SEDES, a program that automatically identifies, quantifies, and visualizes the metrical position of lemmata in ancient Greek hexameter poetry; and gives examples of its application to investigate the effects of metrical position on poetic features such as formularity, expectancy, and intertextuality. </span></span><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=SEDES%3A%20Metrical%20Position%20in%20Greek%20Hexameter&rft.jtitle=Digital%20Humanities%20Quarterly&rft.stitle=DHQ&rft.issn=1938-4122&rft.date=2023-05-31&rft.volume=017&rft.issue=2&rft.aulast=Sansom&rft.aufirst=Stephen A.&rft.au=Stephen A.%20Sansom&rft.au=David%20Fifield"> </span></div> <div class="articleInfo" style="margin:0 0 1em 0;"><span class="monospace">[en] </span><a href="/dhq/vol/17/2/000673/000673.html">Automatic Identification of Rhetorical Elements in classical Arabic Poetry</a><div style="padding-left:1em; margin:0;text-indent:-1em;">Heyam Abd Alhadi, University of Haifa; Ali Ahmad Hussein, University of Haifa; Tsvi Kuflik, University of Haifa</div><span class="viewAbstract">Abstract <span class="viewAbstract monospace" style="display:inline" id="abstractExpanderabstract000673en"><a title="View Abstract" class="expandCollapse monospace" href="javascript:expandAbstract('abstract000673en')">[en]</a></span><span style="display:none" class="abstract" id="abstract000673en"> A novel, rule-based, automatic framework for identifying rhetorical elements in classical Arabic poetry is described. Since rule-based approaches have well-known limitations, it is proposed as an interim solution until a sufficient quantity of annotated text has been amassed with which to train a machine-learning algorithm. The manual process of identifying rhetorical features in classical Arabic poetry is both time-consuming and requires high-level expertise in Arabic literature. Hence, an automatic recognition system will solve this challenge. Automatic identification is, however, challenging, mainly because there is no existing annotated corpus with which to train a machine-learning-based classifier. The framework proposed here combines natural language-processing techniques with a rule-based reasoning approach, and will continually improve as more examples become available. It is intended as an initial step toward building the essential annotated corpus. Its focus is 20 rhetorical elements, all of importance according to classical Arabic rhetoricians, and it achieves the extremely encouraging result of an overall F-measure of 0.902. </span></span><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Automatic%20Identification%20of%20Rhetorical%20Elements%20in%20classical%20Arabic%20Poetry&rft.jtitle=Digital%20Humanities%20Quarterly&rft.stitle=DHQ&rft.issn=1938-4122&rft.date=2023-07-07&rft.volume=017&rft.issue=2&rft.aulast=Abd Alhadi&rft.aufirst=Heyam&rft.au=Heyam%20Abd Alhadi&rft.au=Ali Ahmad%20Hussein&rft.au=Tsvi%20Kuflik"> </span></div> <div class="articleInfo" style="margin:0 0 1em 0;"><span class="monospace">[en] </span><a href="/dhq/vol/17/2/000680/000680.html">Language, Materiality, and Digital Neapolitanitá</a><div style="padding-left:1em; margin:0;text-indent:-1em;">Cristina Migliaccio, CUNY Medgar Evers College</div><span class="viewAbstract">Abstract <span class="viewAbstract monospace" style="display:inline" id="abstractExpanderabstract000680en"><a title="View Abstract" class="expandCollapse monospace" href="javascript:expandAbstract('abstract000680en')">[en]</a></span><span style="display:none" class="abstract" id="abstract000680en"> Southern Italian digital humanist Domenico Fiormonte has argued that “DH is…a discipline and academic discourse dominated materially by an Anglo-American èlite and intellectually by a mono-cultural view” and has repeatedly called for a digital humanities that “improve[s] and cultivate[s] the margins…[giving] more attention [to] variegated cultural and and linguistic cultural diversity” . Similarly, Crystal Hall points out that both the Digital Humanities and Italian Studies “have struggled with inclusivity and the representation for traditionally marginalized voices…[though] both fields offer tools and materials of study that can assist in [a] transformation” . This article takes up the work of these scholars in its investigation of the Neapolitan language on YouTube. According to UNESCO, the Neapolitan language is a vulnerable language because the number of speakers has been decreasing steadily in Southern Italy, forecasting the eventual extinction of the Southern Italian language. UNESCO’s categorization of Neapolitan as “vulnerable” is problematic because it only accounts for speakers in Southern Italy and not in the Italian diaspora, which involves a physical relocation of Neapolitans to other parts of the world such as Australia and the United States. It is also problematic because it indicates that Italians either in Italy or in the diaspora may no longer want to speak Neapolitan. A Neapolitan digital diaspora, unaccounted for in UNESCO statistics, also exists on social media, which may include Neapolitans in Italy and abroad but also may include first-generation Italians, heritage-language speakers, and other-culture people fluent or familiar with the language. In this article, I explore how usages of Neapolitan-Italian language on YouTube might counter the linguistic and cultural subordination of Neapolitans. </span></span><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Language,%20Materiality,%20and%20Digital%20Neapolitanitá&rft.jtitle=Digital%20Humanities%20Quarterly&rft.stitle=DHQ&rft.issn=1938-4122&rft.date=2023-06-21&rft.volume=017&rft.issue=2&rft.aulast=Migliaccio&rft.aufirst=Cristina&rft.au=Cristina%20Migliaccio"> </span></div> <div class="articleInfo" style="margin:0 0 1em 0;"><span class="monospace">[en] </span><a href="/dhq/vol/17/2/000681/000681.html">Machine Learning Techniques For Analyzing Inscriptions From Israel</a><div style="padding-left:1em; margin:0;text-indent:-1em;">Daiki Tagami, Columbia University; Michael Satlow, Brown University</div><span class="viewAbstract">Abstract <span class="viewAbstract monospace" style="display:inline" id="abstractExpanderabstract000681en"><a title="View Abstract" class="expandCollapse monospace" href="javascript:expandAbstract('abstract000681en')">[en]</a></span><span style="display:none" class="abstract" id="abstract000681en"> The date of artifacts is an important factor for scholars to get a further understanding of culture and society of the past. However, many artifacts are damaged over time, and we can often only get fragments of information regarding the original artifact. Here, we use the inscription data from Israel as a model dataset and compare the performances of eleven commonly used regression models. We find that the random forest model would be the optimal machine learning model to predict the year of inscriptions from tabular data. We further show how we can make interpretations from the machine learning prediction model through a variance important plot. This research shows an overview of how machine learning techniques could be used to resolve digital humanities problems by using the Inscription of Israel/Palestine dataset as a model dataset </span></span><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Machine%20Learning%20Techniques%20For%20Analyzing%20Inscriptions%20From%20Israel&rft.jtitle=Digital%20Humanities%20Quarterly&rft.stitle=DHQ&rft.issn=1938-4122&rft.date=2023-06-21&rft.volume=017&rft.issue=2&rft.aulast=Tagami&rft.aufirst=Daiki&rft.au=Daiki%20Tagami&rft.au=Michael%20Satlow"> </span></div> <h2><a href="/dhq/vol/17/2/bios.html">Author Biographies</a></h2></div><div id="footer"><div style="float:left; max-width:70%;"> URL: http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/17/2/index.html<br/> Comments: <a href="mailto:dhqinfo@digitalhumanities.org" class="footer">dhqinfo@digitalhumanities.org</a><br/> Published by: <a href="http://www.digitalhumanities.org" class="footer">The Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations</a> and <a href="http://www.ach.org" class="footer">The Association for Computers and the Humanities</a><br/>Affiliated with: <a href="https://academic.oup.com/dsh">Digital Scholarship in the Humanities</a><br/> DHQ has been made possible in part by the <a href="https://www.neh.gov/">National Endowment for the Humanities</a>.<br/>Copyright © 2005 - <script type="text/javascript"> var currentDate = new Date(); document.write(currentDate.getFullYear());</script><br/><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nd/4.0/80x15.png"/></a><br/>Unless otherwise noted, the DHQ web site and all DHQ published content are published under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>. Individual articles may carry a more permissive license, as described in the footer for the individual article, and in the article’s metadata. </div><img style="max-width:200px;float:right;" src="https://www.neh.gov/sites/default/files/styles/medium/public/2019-08/NEH-Preferred-Seal820.jpg?itok=VyHHX8pd"/></div></div></div></body></html>