Is it possible that examining the rules which govern our use of an everyday appliance can assist data practitioners in collecting and using data in ethical and responsible ways? This inquiry is based on a theory that current and emerging frameworks for data ethics share a palpable synergy with social rules that govern our use of everyday technologies, like the household refrigerator. [...]

In this essay, I examine how data was racialized in the United States through the Tabulating Machine, developed by the German American inventor Herman Hollerith in the 1880s to automate census tabulation. During that time, scientific theories of race posited racial categories to be biologically distinct and hierarchized, thereby defining “whiteness” as a favoured trait. As such, the [...]

This paper analyzes the relationship between the Twilight Saga and Fifty Shades trilogy as a case study on the relationship between published fiction and fanfiction. We aim to develop computational methods for analyzing textual adaptation. To structure our analysis, we use Piper’s (Piper 2017) five-step approach to literary modelling. First, we survey relevant scholarship from fan and [...]

Enumerative bibliographies are lists of scholarship that capture the state of a field. This article first evaluates digital texts of one such bibliography, Franz Thimm’s Shakspeariana from 1564–1864 (second edition, 1872), before applying textual analysis using Voyant Tools. The takeaways are both methodological and interpretive: we can use inaccurate online texts (“dirty OCR,” that [...]

In early 2020, the SARS-CoV-2 virus was recognized as a threat by most countries, and the risk of its spread was already being discussed. After the first cases were identified and the sudden onset of lockdowns, we realized the need to document Albertans’ experience of the pandemic. This paper describes [...]

This paper tests the open-source OCR software KuroNet’s performance on printed texts written in kanbun, comparing the results to other freely available off-the-shelf OCR solutions. Kanbun, a literary standard using Chinese characters and syntax to represent Japanese textual content, was employed widely throughout Japan from the classical into the modern period. Its [...]

Contemporary studies on historical migrations gradually demystified the idea that the population in the past was stable and homogenous, and unveiled dynamic and complex connections throughout the whole of Europe. However, even if we are in the era of digitalization and big data, there is no standardized methodology to investigate historical migrations, and there are major challenges in [...]

Although ancient historians routinely create and exploit document corpora, and the notion of corpus is recognized as central in historiography, there has been little methodological focus on coming to a unified approach to the design and use of corpora. The massive expanse of digital information and processing capabilities over the past few years has also led to a diversity of approaches. After [...]

This paper explores the layers of remediation and hidden labour embedded in the digitization of early modern texts, focusing on how metadata traces in digital archives can both reveal and obscure the material history of books. Using a bibliographic workflow, this study examines the challenges of distinguishing between material artifacts of the original printing process and distortions [...]

La popularisation du numérique et la facilité d’accès de nombreux outils de création ont permis aux lecteur·rice·s, joueurs·euse·s et spectateur·rice·s de participer à l’établissement d’univers étendus. Ces individus sont tout autant des artistes confirmé·e·s, rémunéré·e·s pour ce travail, que des amateur·rice·s, plus ou moins expert·e·s dans leur domaine et dans l’œuvre à laquelle iels [...]

According to John Stuart Mill’s Autobiography, his mature work should be thought of as “the product not of one intellect and conscience but of three” (J. S. Mill [1873] 1981, 265). He claimed that The Subjection of Women (1869) was co-authored by himself, Harriet Taylor Mill, and Helen Taylor. Most of J. S. Mill’s readers have been largely unconvinced both by his claims of [...]

The digital revolution has partly disembodied humanity, as evermore time and effort are spent on cyberspace, where virtual simulations of the real increasingly preoccupy our minds. The AI is the last simulator joining the party, now also simulating “love” and “romance.” Today, millions of people are entering “love relationships” with the algorithm. Using a discourse analysis and insights on [...]

This study examines the dynamics of hate speech on social media, focusing on comments opposing the announcement of the Queermuseu – Cartografias da Diferença na Arte Brasileira (Cartographies of Diversity in Brazilian Art) exhibition in southern Brazil. Employing appraisal system, Systemic-Functional Linguistics, and network analysis, the research investigates the linguistic and semantic [...]

How is the world changing as a result of our interactions with the material core of digital devices? What theoretical tools does our humanistic culture offer us to understand the impact of technologies on our world?

Referring to the methodological fields of new materialism and critical code studies, the paper presents the conditions for developing a hermeneutic analysis of computer [...]

Despite the growing number of medievalist projects, it is difficult to identify the ones that use Iberian chronicles to study people from the gender perspective in a digital setting. To bridge this gap, a prosopographical database of all women mentioned in the Crónica de Castilla (ca. 1300) has been produced. This article documents its development from the initial interests to the [...]

As a widely used, popular medium, digital games successfully circulate a variety of narratives, discourses, and practices among highly diverse audiences. While games are often riddled with references, players sometimes encounter narratives that draw on recent or more distant pasts, or that engender connections with contemporary issues and topics. This paper explores how digital games may be [...]

Despite the growing prevalence of digital tools in humanistic research, we do not have a comprehensive theory of how these digital media and technologies affect and warp our research processes and outputs. The shift away from analog methods and towards digital tools is rapid and overwhelming, but even then, only a handful of these tools have been theorized as research practices. In the [...]

This paper presents a digital humanities framework for the study of the art exhibition phenomena in Europe in the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries, which deploys a mixed-methods approach based upon the concept of relevance. This matter is examined from the perspective of art history, previous contributions are discussed, and the rationale for the proposed framework is [...]

In the rapidly evolving field of digital humanities, methodological considerations, especially the interplay between “distant reading” and “close reading,” play a prominent role. This paper, presented against the backdrop of these two critical approaches, undertakes a comprehensive exploration of reflections on mixed methodology that have emerged within the field, emphasizing calls for a [...]