19.397 VR scholarly editions?

               Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 19, No. 397.
       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: Thu, 03 Nov 2005 07:36:01 +0000
         From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty_at_kcl.ac.uk>
         Subject: VR scholarly editions?

Let us say that it were possible to construct virtually real,
immersive environments, such as on the imagined holodeck of the
starship Enterprise. Let's say that with such a tool, a book
historian and editor of Victorian fiction were to construct a
simulation of a typical environment in which, say, a gothic novel
might have been read -- down to the flickering animal-fat candles,
their smell, the rattling sashes, gusts of wind etc. Let's say in
addition that other scholars of the period and genre not only could
immerse themselves in this VR simulation but that they could also
play with the parameters of the simulation, e.g. to put our imagined
editor's instantiated views of the scene to the test.

What would be the scholarly value of such work? Would this
environment itself qualify in your mind as an "edition", or would it
be a component of an edition? Is this a path down which you think we
should go when it becomes possible to do such things?

Yours,
WM

Dr Willard McCarty | Reader in Humanities Computing | Centre for
Computing in the Humanities | King's College London | Kay House, 7
Arundel Street | London WC2R 3DX | U.K. | +44 (0)20 7848-2784 fax:
-2980 || willard.mccarty_at_kcl.ac.uk www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/wlm/
Received on Thu Nov 03 2005 - 03:06:09 EST