18.399 scholarship and Google

               Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 18, No. 399.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
                   www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
                        www.princeton.edu/humanist/
                     Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu

        Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 07:28:12 +0000
         From: lachance_at_origin.chass.utoronto.ca (Francois Lachance)
         Subject: Search Strings Redux Re: 18.390 scholarship and Google

Joseph Raben
in Humanist 18.390 scholarship and Google
wrote

<quote> so far to my request for evidence that Scholar.Google is a useful
tool for scholarly research, I have seen nothing yet that really
responds.</quote>

I don't know if what follows will give satisfaction or provide evidence
of a sighting of usefulness. >

The question first posted in 18.382 Literary references to Alice in
Scholar.Google? read:

<quote> Has anyone found really scholarly material through this resource?
</quote>

and in its context was perhaps meant to not just refer to scholarly
material in general but schalarly material relating to this particular
quest:

<cite><quote>With Google Scholar, using search string "Alice's Adventures
in Wonderland" one does access scholarly resources. One does not however
access resources or material that address the topic referenced as "Alice
in Wonderland as a Prism for Viewing Victorian Society."</quote> (See
Humanist 18.382). </cit>

We have currently no report on the search strings that were used in the
attempt to locate both real and useful scholarly material. I can report
that search string "Victorian Society Alice Wonderland" does however bring
items that may perhaps be of interest, of use and of real scholarly value.
For example:

   Archives of Disease in Childhood 2003;88:545-548
   Once upon a time ...
   E Storr and M C J Rudolf
   Abstract:
   In this, the first of two articles discussing literature for and about
   children, we will be considering how writing for the young has changed,
   reflecting different and evolving perspectives on childhood.

   Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, March 2000, vol. 25, no. 3, pp.
   211-219(9)
   Monster soup: the microscope and Victorian fantasy
   Seibold-bultmann U.
   Abstract:
   The Victorian predilection for the grotesque owed more than is commonly
   recognised to nature's microdimension. During the heyday of natural
   history in Britain (c. 1820­70), the microscope revealed myriads of shapes
   and creatures so utterly unfamiliar that writers on the subject resorted
   to flamboyant prose in order to render them intelligible. This had
   reverberations not least for the visual arts. The metaphors chosen by
   authors attempting to describe the microscopic world soon developed a
   visual presence, with supernatural features being projected even onto
   illustrations in supposedly scientific contexts. At the same time, such
   illustrations share certain motifs and/or stylistic characteristics with
   fairy paintings and illustrations by artists such as Daniel Maclise
   (1806-70), Richard Dadd (1817-86), Sir Joseph Noel Paton (1821­1901), and
   Arthur Hughes (1832­1915). In view of this, the fact that the golden age
   of British fairy painting coincided chronologically with the Victorian
   craze for microscopy seems to be the result of more than mere chance. If
   we acknowledge this, we must also ask whether, in the mid nineteenth
   century, points of contact between microscopy and the visual arts led to a
   liberation or else a limitation of fantasy.

    ***************

> As I have often stated, a touchstone humanist text is the De Copia by
> Erasmus. Very very applicable to the creation of variations on search
> strings.

--
Francois Lachance, Scholar-at-large
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~lachance
A calendar is like a map. And just as maps have insets, calendars in the
21st century might have 'moments' expressed in flat local time fanning out
into "great circles" expressed in earth revolution time.