Articles
The Eras Tour: Machine Learning for Dating
Historical Texts from Greco-Roman EgyptDanushka Bandara, Fairfield University; Fatima Chowdhury, Fairfield University; Jack
Stow, Fairfield University; Adrian Gallant, Fairfield University; Habibul Huq, Fairfield
University; Giovanni Ruffini, Fairfield University
Abstract
[en]
Accurate dating of historical texts is essential for understanding cultural and
historical narratives. However, traditional methods, such as paleographic and
physical examination, can be subjective, costly, and potentially damaging to
manuscripts. This paper introduces a machine learning approach to predicting the
authorship dates of historical texts by using named entities — specifically,
person and place names — as temporal markers. Using a dataset from Trismegistos,
which includes metadata on the earliest and latest possible writing dates, we
apply regression models to estimate text origins. While linear models like Lasso
and Ridge Regression showed limited success, nonlinear models, including Random
Forest, XGBoost, and Neural Networks, performed significantly better, with
ensemble methods delivering the best results. The top-performing ensemble model
achieved a mean absolute error of 45.7 years, surpassing traditional techniques.
This study demonstrates the potential of named entities as temporal indicators
and the effectiveness of ensemble learning in capturing complex historical
patterns. Offering a scalable, non-destructive alternative to traditional
methods.
Striving towards automated writing – Views on
authorship in story generation research Tuuli Hongisto, University of Helsinki
Abstract
[en]
This article examines how authorship is approached in story generation research publications.
Story generation research forms its own, distinctive context in which computer-generated
literary texts are being produced. Through text analysis and comparisons to other
forms of computer-generated literature, the article examines what kind of rhetoric
is used when the authorship of computer-generated texts is described in this context,
and how the roles of the programmers and the program are characterised. The findings
suggest that the approach to authorship in story generation research is mainly technical,
referring strictly to the production process of the text, and leaving out the meaning
of authorship as responsibility and accountability of the work as an aesthetic whole.
This technical view affects how human-computer relations are discussed in the research,
as “human-generated” and “computer-generated” texts are contrasted with each other.
Furthermore, this dichotomy of the human and the machine affects how the produced
stories are evaluated.
The Application of Latent Semantic Analysis to the Voynich ManuscriptLisa Fagin Davis, Medieval Academy of America; Colin Layfield, University of Malta
Abstract
[en]
The Voynich Manuscript (VM) is a medieval manuscript likely written in the 15th century
(Yale Univ., Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library MS 408). The manuscript is written
in an unknown language or code using an unidentified set of symbols that has yet to
be made legible. Additionally, the codex contains many strange and fantastical images
of plants, people, and cosmological/zodiac illustrations, the meaning of which are
also unknown. One of the main research avenues into the VM is to examine its textual
content to understand how it behaves relative to known texts; this can provide insight
as to whether the mysterious writings contain decipherable text or not. In this paper,
we explore the coherence and flow of the manuscript using Latent Semantic Analysis
(LSA). LSA is a technique that may help ascertain whether the behavior of the text
within the VM shows evidence of a coherent flow of topical content, by comparative
analysis of text samples that are near each other, farther away from each other, at
section breaks, or even page breaks. The advantage of this strategy is that LSA analysis
can be undertaken without actually knowing the meaning of the text. We expect portions
of text that are near to each other to have a relatively high similarity score, that
is, to be potentially semantically related. We also expect that at anticipated topic
breaks (pages or sections), the similarity score between adjacent text blocks would
be smaller, as the breaks seem to represent a change in topic. Both of these patterns
are observed in the control manuscript studied as proof-of-concept experiments. Patterns
then observed in several sections of the VM suggest that there may be an overall coherence
to the text.
Reconfiguring the Ideal Order: Ablation and Field Formation in the Twentieth-Century
Nigerian Novel in EnglishGrant Hamilton, Chinese University of Hong Kong; Eli Park Sorensen, Chinese University
of Hong Kong
Abstract
[en]
PLACEHOLDER
Mapping Public Housing in LiteratureCrystal Rudds, University of Utah; Theadora Soter, University of Utah, Marriott Library
Good Women, Mediocre Men: Hierarchy in Narrative and Digital Prosopographyfirst name(s) family name,
Abstract
[en]
Creating a prosopography of people who engaged with the Georgian theatre requires
interrogating mixed media sources, including archival documents; print materials including
anecdotal magazine articles, playbills, and biographies; digital authority records
like those compiled by the Virtual International Authority File (VIAF); other databases;
and traditional scholarship about theatre history. Embedded within this ecosystem
of sources is a hierarchy of information which often privileges the cultural capital
that comes with celebrity and notoriety. In this article, we use the careers of the
actor Alexander Pope and his two wives, Elizabeth Younge and Maria Ann Campion, as
case studies to investigate how these hierarchies are inscribed and reinscribed first
in historical documents and subsequently in modern scholarship. In a period with five
prominent theatrical Popes, we argue for digital prosopography as a methodology that
can counter these hierarchies. When incorporated into a project like ‘Theatronomics:
The Business of Theatre, 1732-1809’, which links people to their earnings and their
box office power, digital prosopography enables us to illuminate the labour of individuals
that might otherwise be concealed by the mythos of celebrity, and the institution
of the theatre more generally.
This article is part of a project that has received funding from the European Research
Council (ERC) under the European Union’s 2020 research and innovation programme. Grant
agreement No. 101001052.
Digital Storytelling, Vulnerable Migrant Communities, and Undergraduate EducationRobert McKee Irwin, University of California, Davis
Abstract
[en]
Humanizing Deportation is a participatory audiovisual project that since early 2017
has documented and disseminated the repercussions of contemporary migration and border
control laws and policies on vulnerable migrants in the United States and Mexico.
Through on the ground collaborations with deported migrants and asylum seekers in
Tijuana and elsewhere, we have published over 500 digital stories (testimonial audiovisual
shorts) on our bilingual website. While fieldwork has been realized principally in
Tijuana and elsewhere in Mexico by faculty and graduate students, we have increasingly
developed strategies for incorporating undergraduate students at the University of
California, Davis, into our research team, by training them in our audiovisual production
techniques. This has allowed these students, many of whose families are affected directly
by such laws and policies, to become directly and meaningfully involved in helping
migrants communicate their experiences and concerns to the world. This article lays
out the methods we use in involving undergrads directly, albeit remotely, in our deeply
collaborative production processes, highlighting both the rewards and the risks in
this endeavor. For many of our students, their participation in Humanizing Deportation
constitutes one of the most meaningful experiences they obtain in college.
Fostering Transborder Thinking at the Intersection of Digital-Public Humanities and
Border Epistemologies with United FronterasSylvia Fernández Quintanilla, University of Texas at San Antonio; Carolina E. Alonso,
Fort Lewis College; Maira E. Álvarez, University of Toronto; Laura Gonzales, University
of Florida
Abstract
[en]
In this article, we delve into the intersection of digital and public humanities and
border epistemologies, offering pedagogical frameworks that leverage the analysis
and engagement of tools, practices, and ethical knowledge production to challenge
dominant narratives of the Mexico-U.S. border. The article presents and explores the
creation and impact of the online directory and memory project, United Fronteras (2020), which offers a framework for transborder thinking. The authors analyze diverse
projects and digital materials to reveal the complexities of border communities through
research, teaching, archives development, and/or lived experiences. Through this analysis,
the authors offer pedagogical models that can help continue expanding transborder
digital humanities work. This collaborative approach amplifies underrepresented voices,
thus challenging common misconceptions and advocating for a more inclusive understanding
of the Mexico-U.S. border. The article demonstrates the application of border epistemology
and United Fronteras within border communities and academic settings across multiple universities and
disciplines to foster the theory, praxis and pedagogy of transborder digital and public
humanities across different borderlands.
Social Media as a Digital Humanities Platform? A conversation between Rendering Revolution
co-founders, Jonathan Michael Square and Siobhan MeïSiobhan Meï, University of Massachusetts Amherst; Jonathan Michael Square, Parsons
School of Design
Abstract
[en]
This article offers an overview of the digital humanities methods and theories that
inform the project Rendering Revolution: Sartorial Approaches to Haitian History.
In this article, project co-founders Jonathan Square and Siobhan Meï engage in a conversation
about their collaborative model for doing public-facing scholarship at the intersections
of black and Caribbean digital humanities. Specifically, Meï and Square critically
consider the role of social media in building and sustaining their project, which
uses the lens of fashion and material culture to trace the aesthetic, social, and
political reverberations of the Haitian Revolution. Through the collaborative effort
of a team whose expertise lies in translation, visual culture, and cultural theory,
Rendering Revolution uses Instagram to connect the past and present in ways that are
visually compelling and exemplify the power of social media as a tool for scholarly
communication.
Voces y Caras: Community Building through the Collection of StoriesConstanza López Baquero, University of North Florida
Abstract
[en]
This article discusses the trajectory and impact of the digital oral history project
Voces y Caras: Latinx Communities of North Florida, which has played an important role in building community and advocating for the
Latinx populations at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, Florida. My
paper argues that the project represents a model that can be adapted by others who
work with Heritage speakers and U.S. Hispanic/Latinx communities. To do so, it reviews
the history of the project, connects it to a larger movement related to Latinx oral
history in the U.S., and considers the ways the digital and non-digital components
complement each other and enable the project to have a vibrant life not only online
but also in physical spaces. Most importantly, it reflects on the power of projects
focusing on digital oral history and building connections between people, as tools
to create learning experiences that motivate students and help them to engage with
their communities.
Baobabs, Networks and Digital Sovereignty: Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous Community
Digital Territories as Communitarian DHEduard Arriaga-Arango, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Language, Literature
and Culture, Clark University
Abstract
[en]
Baobáxia is an initiative developed by the Afro-Brazilian network Rede Mocambos that
serves as a model of community digital organizing so they can propose data justice,
digital sovereignty and autonomy. Baobáxia is a technology that interconnects diverse
communities in Brazil (i.e, Quilombos, Indigenous communities and Favelas, among others),
and also creates a structure to store, curate and disseminate local knowledge, traditions,
histories and representations. This infrastructure demonstrates how non-expert communities
can use digital strategies to defend their territory, preserve their cultural production,
and affirm their human condition. Throughout this article I discuss how Baobáxia and
Rede Mocambos work, as well as a collaborative project to connect with other quilombos,
Black and Indigenous communities in the Americas. The collaborations described herein
are part of community digital humanities initiatives that go beyond the boundaries
of the university and the academia expanding their scope and contributing to a humanization
of technology.
Building on the Margins: Salt & AloesLauren Baccus, Founder, Salt & Aloes
Abstract
[en]
This paper examines Salt & Aloes, a digital humanities project founded in 2020 to explore and circulate Caribbean
material culture through alternative digital spaces. Originating from a creative inquiry
into a single colonial object, the planter’s chair, the project challenges the silences
and distortions embedded within colonial archives. Salt & Aloes operates as a form of fugitivity, working beyond traditional academic institutions,
relying on limited resources, and sustained by vibrant networks of artists, scholars,
and community members. This work illustrates the potential of digital humanities tools
to reframe Caribbean histories in plural and emergent ways, while also confronting
systemic barriers such as colonial legacies, funding limitations, and institutional
gatekeeping. After a period of rapid growth, the project now pauses to reflect and
recalibrate, focusing on deepening meaningful connections and its own limited capacity.
Embracing the inherent messiness of creative work at the margins,Salt & Aloes models a practice of digital marronage that negotiates space alongside institutions
without losing its autonomy. Ultimately, this project highlights the human and scholarly
possibilities of caring, daring, and decolonial approaches to knowledge production
in Caribbean digital scholarship.
Fanm Rebèl: Digital and Public Heritage Assemblages of Women in the Haitian RevolutionDr. Nicole Willson, University of Lancashire
Abstract
[en]
This article critically reflects on the creation, scope and scholarly implications
of Fanm Rebèl, an engaged research and digital and public heritage project that reassembles
the occluded histories of women in the Haitian Revolution and the period of early
Haitian state-making. Centred on the recovery and reimagining of the manifold articulations
of women-led resistance, Fanm Rebèl explores how fragments of women’s lives dispersed
across archives, embedded in oral histories and reimagined through creative and expressive
practice can be mobilised to generate alternative genealogies of revolutionary memory.
Drawing on Haitian ideas of rasanblaj (re/-assembly), the project integrates a range
of digital and material “imprints” – from an open-access and bilingual online gallery
and archive to commemorative heritage plaques and a YouTube documentary – each constituting
an exercise in communal caretakership and decolonial praxis. Through an examination
of its collaborative, engaged and inter- and antidisciplinary methodologies, the article
interrogates how digital assemblages can resist archival silences and model forms
of radical stewardship. While it ponders the ethical and emotional labour demanded
by such work and the problems of ephemerality in creating digital outputs in particular,
it advocates for a “constellation” of assemblages that have multiple afterlives across
digital, material and community spaces. In tracing the multiple trajectories of Fanm
Rebèl, this article proposes an insurgent and resilient framework for digital and
public humanities practice undergirded by ethics of collaboration and care.
first name(s) family name,
Articles
Test Article: Code SamplesJulia Flanders, Northeastern University
Abstract
[en]
A test article for code syntax highlighting
Article title!first name(s) family name,
DHQ Test Article: BeastiaryJulia Flanders, Northeastern University; John A. Walsh, Indiana University
Test Article Demonstrating RevisionNote: RevisedDHQ, None
Abstract
[en]
This test article is based on Belinda Barnet, “Machine Enhanced (Re)minding: the Development
of Storyspace”. This article traces the history of Storyspace, the world’s first program
for creating, editing and reading hypertext fiction. Storyspace is crucial to the
history of hypertext as well as the history of interactive fiction. It argues that
Storyspace was built around a topographic metaphor and that it attempts to model human
associative memory. The article is based on interviews with key hypertext pioneers
as well as documents created at the time.
[fr] Article Expérimentale: En Français[en] Test Article: French-Language Article with Stub Translation[es] Artículo de prueba: artículo en francés con traducción de esbozoDHQ, None
Abstract
[fr][en][es]
This test article is based on Jean-Guy Meunier, «Le texte numérique : enjeux herméneutiques».
La numérisation des textes est omniprésente dans les humanités numériques. Elle
semble se présenter uniquement comme une modification du support matériel : du
texte sur papier au texte numérique. Mais elle fait plus que cela. La
numérisation touche aussi le texte en tant qu’objet sémiotique. Or, les
multiples opérations de cette technologie mettent en œuvre des décisions
interprétatives qui ne sont pas sans affecter le texte sémiotique, c’est-à-dire
celui qui se donne à lire et à analyser. En ce sens, la numérisation des textes
n’est pas neutre. Elle est un moment important d’une herméneutique matérielle.
This test article is based on Jean-Guy Meunier, “Le texte numérique : enjeux herméneutiques”.
The digitization of texts is omnipresent in the digital humanities. It seems to
present itself only as a modification of the material medium: from text on
paper to digital text. But it does more than that. Digitization also affects
the text as a semiotic object. The multiple operations of this technology
implement interpretative decisions that are not without their effects on the
semiotic text; that is to say, the text that offers itself for reading and
analysis. In this sense, the digitization of texts is not neutral. It is an
important moment of material hermeneutics.
Este artículo de prueba se basa en Jean-Guy Meunier, “Le texte numérique : enjeux
herméneutiques”. La digitalización de textos es omnipresente en las humanidades digitales.
Parece presentarse solo como una modificación del soporte material: del texto en papel
al texto digital. Pero va más allá. La digitalización también afecta al texto como
objeto semiótico. Las múltiples operaciones de esta tecnología implementan decisiones
interpretativas que no dejan de tener efectos en el texto semiótico; es decir, el
texto que se ofrece para la lectura y el análisis. En este sentido, la digitalización
de textos no es neutral. Es un momento importante de la hermenéutica material.
[en] Test Article: Foreign Language with Full Translation[fr] Bienvenue à Digital Humanities QuarterlyJulia Flanders, Brown University; Wendell Piez, Mulberry Technologies, Inc.; Melissa
Terras, University College London
Abstract
[en][fr]
A welcome to DHQ from the editors, with a brief summary of the journal's
development and goals.
Un accueil à DHQ des éditeurs, avec un bref résumé de la revue
Le développement et les objectifs.
Media Encoding SamplesJulia Flanders, Northeastern University
Abstract
[en]
Sample media encoding
Math Encoding SampleJulia Flanders, Foo
Abstract
[en]
Sample MathJax encoding
Sample Field ReportJulia Flanders, Foo
Abstract
[en]
Sample MathJax encoding
[en] An Article Title[it] Il Titolo dell'ArticoloBenjamin Grey, Digital Humanities Quarterly; Josiah Carberry, Psychoceramics Department,
Brown University; Jean-Baptiste Botul, Association of the Friends of Jean-Baptiste
Botul
Abstract
[en]
Welcome to the DHQ sample article. In this document, you should be able to find
properly formatted examples of
nearly every potential article element allowed for DHQ articles. For documentation
on when or how to use these
elements, consult the Encoding Documentation Wiki, available at: https://github.com/Digital-Humanities-Quarterly/dhq-journal/wiki/DHQ-Encoding-Documentation
To see what
most of these elements look like when passed through DHQ CSS, import the DHQ_Proof
transformation scenario and open
it in a web browser.
