Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 14, No. 802.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
[1] From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk> (98)
Subject: "Georgian Cities" CD-ROM
[2] From: "Bobley, Brett" <BBobley@neh.gov> (60)
Subject: Two More Lectures in NEH eHumanities Series
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 10:08:57 +0100
From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk>
Subject: "Georgian Cities" CD-ROM
[The following is being circulated on behalf of the research centre
"Cultures Anglophones et Technologies de
l'Information" to announce its latest product, a CD-ROM entitled "Georgian
Cities", and to give an overview of its other activities. --WM]
-----
CD-ROM Georgian Cities
Authored by the
Research Centre "Cultures Anglophones et Technologies de l'Information",
Universit de Paris-Sorbonne
Published by Presses de l'Universit de Paris-Sorbonne, 2001
The CD-ROM 'Georgian Cities' consists of four sections totalling about
1000 frames: London, Bath, Edinburgh and a thematic chapter on
architecture, society, culture, religion. It reflects transdisciplinary
approaches to urban studies: cartography, architecture, cultural life,
and studies in literary and artistic images of these
cities, combining documents of various types -- maps and photographs of
cityscapes, paintings, literary texts, musical recordings, extracts
from films on Georgian life. The documents were prepared by a team of
specialists (Jacques Carr: architecture and society; Franoise
Deconinck-Brossard: music and religion; Brigitte Mitchell de Soye:
social life, Bath ; Marie-Hlne Thvenot-Totems: cultural life,
Scottish studies), and the multimedia integration was done by the
codirectors of the research centre, Liliane Gallet-Blanchard and
Marie-Madeleine Martinet, demonstrating the integration of historical
specialisms and computing skills.
The hypertext structure allows the user to move from one section to
another: The user may for instance enter the section on Edinburgh
through the homepage of the section, then moving to its subsection
on daily life and furniture, which has hyperlinks to a corresponding
subsection in Bath, from which navigation in any chapter on the
latter city -- religion, hospitals -- is possible; the correlations
between the different disciplines of cultural history is thus
emphasised.
Navigation can also continue through an index, a sitemap highlighting
the user's present position, a chronology, which are accessible from
any page, in a navigation bar. The structure of the CD-ROM makes
full use of hypermedia, and is meant to explore its potentialities in
cultural history. The navigational paths correspond to the various
types of contextualisation for each section, articulating social or
cultural or architectural approaches : it allows the user to move
through links and hot spots from maps to pictures and photographs of
Georgian buildings, or from texts about music to audio
extracts.
The interface options have been selected so as to reproduce
eighteenth-century forms of perception: animation effects are used to
illustrate a historical process such as the development of the New Town
of Edinburgh, the sequential nature of narrative texts by Fielding on
London, or to follow the explanation of a process (eg reconstructing
the steps in plotting a perspective construction by Turner); windows
can be opened by the user to suggest a change of scale in
town-planning (eg map/building: from a map of Bath to the Royal
Crescent, then to interior views and blown-up details); sets of
alternative images can be replaced to suggest options eg of contrasting
viewpoints on a cityscape -- views of Somerset House by several artists,
in sections which model Georgian representational techniques, so as
to enable the user to reproduce (and thus question) the ways in which
the Georgian cityscape has been mediated to us in art; similarly,
choices are offered between several musical tunes to accompany a
picture- a Handel overture or pastoral tunes-; transition effects
(eg zoom, or random effect) have been inserted to underline modes of
vision -- enlargement of the field of vision in painting, digressive
structure of a text by Dr Johnson or the Reverend Penrose narrating
their experiences in London or Bath.
Georgian Cities is meant primarily to teach undergraduate and graduate
students in the fields of eighteenth-century studies or cultural
history, humanities computing and the aesthetics of hypermedia, and in
interdisciplinary courses on subject-related computing skills. It also
proposes an example of epistemological research in the semiotics of
hypermedia presentation applied to cultural history: modelling the
Georgian urban culture in the information space of electronic documents
through the software functions, a topic explored in the editors'
contribution to DRH 98: "The hyperspace of the Enlightenment."
Systems requirements: Windows 95 or later, 800x600 display with 65000
colours, sound card, 60 Mb of free space.
Contact: Marie-Madeleine.Martinet@paris4.sorbonne.fr or
Liliane.Gallet@wanadoo.fr
The Research Centre "Cultures Anglophones et Technologies de
l'Information" conducts research in Humanities Computing. It authors
multimedia products such as the present CD-ROM, and its research website
http://www.cati.paris4.sorbonne.fr. The members of the Centre give
presentations on them at international conferences and in research
centres. It supports research on the aesthetics and semiotics of
multimedia, published in the Centre's own series (Sorbonne University
Press) and in international publications. t organises conferences with
demonstrations by guest lecturers (King's College London, Oxford, The
Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute at the
University of Glasgow, The Centre for Advanced Studies in Architecture
at Bath, The Scottish Cultural Resources Access Network, The Advanced
Technology Center at Missouri University, The Digital Image Center at
the University of Virginia). Its members direct the methodological
courses in electronic documentation methods for the Sorbonne's
undergraduate and graduate students, both in general courses and in
subject-related workshops. It is currently taking part in the
University's project in on-line distance learning.
-----
Dr Willard McCarty / Senior Lecturer /
Centre for Computing in the Humanities / King's College London /
Strand / London WC2R 2LS / U.K. /
+44 (0)20 7848-2784 / ilex.cc.kcl.ac.uk/wlm/
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 10:18:33 +0100
From: "Bobley, Brett" <BBobley@neh.gov>
Subject: Two More Lectures in NEH eHumanities Series
The NEH is now announcing the next two speakers in our eHumanities lecture
series in Washington, DC. Please pass to your colleagues.
===========================
eHumanities
An NEH Lecture Series on Technology & the Humanities
Registration is free via our website:
http://www.neh.gov/online/ehumanities.html
The National Endowment for the Humanities is proud to announce a series of
lectures on eHumanities, which will bring leading scholars to Washington, DC
to discuss digital technology and its importance to the humanities.
* * * * * * * * * *
LECTURE II
Tuesday, May 1, Noon - 1:00 pm
Professor Alan Liu
University of California, Santa Barbara
TITLE: Historicizing "Information"
DESCRIPTION: What is the value of historical knowledge as studied in the
humanities in an information age when only the technologically "new,"
"cutting-edge," and "just-in-time" seem to have real value? In this lecture,
Alan Liu will discuss a philosophical and historical approach to information
as well as his own pedagogical and research approaches to making history
matter in the era of instantaneous knowledge. He will use examples found in
in Albert Borgmann's 1999 book, "Holding On to Reality: The Nature of
Information at the Turn of the Millennium."
* * * * * * * * * *
LECTURE III
Tuesday, June 5, Noon - 1:00 pm
Professor Eric Rabkin
University of Michigan in Ann Arbor
TITLE: Using Computers to Discover Cultural Truths: The Genre Evolution
Project Studies Science Fiction
DESCRIPTION: The Genre Evolution Project is testing the hypothesis that
cultural materials, like biological organisms in their environments, evolve
as complex adaptive systems. In order to test this hypothesis, the GEP has
developed new, collaborative, computer-based methods that bridge the usual
gap between qualitative and quantitative research. Using the American
science fiction short story as its first test subject, the GEP has made
discoveries both in critical theory in general and in science fiction in
specific. Among the latter discoveries is a new understanding of the
evolution of characterization that not only contradicts received literary
historical truisms but suggests why critics may have gotten this wrong and
what in fact created the literary evolution we now document.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----What is eHumanities all about?
How does technology affect traditional humanities disciplines? Some scholars and educators have argued that in just a few short years, advances in information technology and the development of the Internet have had a more dramatic affect on the way people read, write, and exchange information than any invention since the printing press. In the long term, what will its impact be on our notions of literature? On our culture and society? What are some of the philosophical ramifications of these advances? The goal of this series is to highlight some of the important work being done by scholars who are studying digital technology from various perspectives in the humanities.
The lectures will take place at the National Endowment for the Humanities, 1100 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20506 in Room M-09. Attendance is free, but please register in advance (see below). Feel free to share this announcement with your colleagues.
Registration is free via our website: http://www.neh.gov/online/ehumanities.html
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