Data, Disciplines, and Dialogue: Lessons for Project Design
In: Asiascape: Digital AsiaSearch for other papers by Gerry van Klinken in
Current site
Google Scholar
A common assumption in Digital Humanities (dh) project design is that ‘data’ is simply there, ready to ‘drive’ the research. The funders of a dh project described in this paper adhered to this positivistic assumption in their founding White Paper. They saw disciplines as blinders, best left behind in order to better see ‘patterns’. However, positivism was not a real-world option for the social scientists, mathematicians, and information scientists engaged in this ‘blue sky’ project, which investigated digitized historical newspaper texts. Far from being a hindrance to their work, disciplinary traditions were central to any success they achieved. Instead of moving ‘beyond’ disciplines, they developed a pluralist, cross-disciplinary dialogue. Each participant contributed out of the epistemic convention that had proven fruitful in their discipline. The approach required an intellectual and emotional commitment to dialogue, and produced tantalizing rather than wholly satisfying results. But it holds promise of more.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
Bod Rens ‘Het einde van de geesteswetenschappen 1.0 (The End of Humanities 1.0)’ 2012 Amsterdam University of Amsterdam, Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen en de Faculteit der Natuurwetenschappen, Wiskunde en Informatica
-
Cohen Patricia ‘Humanities 2.0: Digital Keys for Unlocking the Humanities’ Riches’ The New York Times 2010 November 16 retrieved 5 November 2016 from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/arts/17digital.html.
-
Fickers Andreas ‘Veins Filled with the Diluted Sap of Rationality: A Critical Reply to Rens Bod’ BMGN – Low Countries Historical Review 2013 128 4 155 163 Retrieved 5 November from https://orbilu.uni.lu/bitstream/10993/22715/1/Some_Reflections_on_Digital_History_and.pdf.
-
Hall Gary Gold Matthew K. ‘Has Critical Theory Run Out of Time for Data-Driven Scholarship?’ Debates in the Digital Humanities 2012 Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press
-
Hicks Jacqueline, Traag Vincent & Reinanda Ridho ‘Old Questions, New Techniques: A Research Note on the Computational Identification of Political Elites’ Comparative Sociology 2015 14 386 401 Retrieved 5 November 2016 from http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/15691330-12341347.
-
Kaltenbrunner Wolfgang ‘Decomposition as Practice and Process: Creating Boundary Objects in Computational Humanities’ Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 2014 39 143 161
-
Kaltenbrunner Wolfgang ‘Reflexive Inertia: Reinventing Scholarship through Digital Practices’ 2015 PhD thesis, Leiden University. Retrieved 5 November 2016 from https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/handle/1887/33061.
-
Klinken Gerry van ‘Introduction: Digital Methods in Asian Studies’ Asian Journal of Social Science 2015 43 539 544
-
Levine Donald N. Visions of the Sociological Tradition 1995 Chicago et al. University of Chicago Press
-
Reinanda Ridho, Meij Edgar & de Rijke Maarten ‘Mining, Ranking and Recommending Entity Aspects’ Paper presented to sigir 2015: 38th international acm sigir conference on research and development in information retrieval 2015 263 272 Retrieved 5 November 2016 from https://staff.fnwi.uva.nl/m.derijke/content/publications/sigir2015-fp-mining.pdf.
-
Scheinfeldt Tom ‘Sunset for Ideology, Sunrise for Methodology?’ Found History 2008 retrieved 5 November 2016 from https://foundhistory.org/2008/03/sunset-for-ideology-sunrise-for-methodology/.
-
Scheinfeldt Tom ‘Where’s the Beef? Does Digital Humanities Have to Answer Questions?’ Found History 2010 May 12 retrieved 5 November 2016 from https://foundhistory.org/2010/05/wheres-the-beef-does-digital-humanities-have-to-answer-questions/.
-
Traag Vincent A. ‘Complex Contagion of Campaign Donations’ PLoS ONE 2016 11 4 retrieved 5 November 2016 from http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0153539.
-
Willekens Frans, Baulieu Anne, Bod Rens, Bosch Antal van den, Honing Henkjan, Jong Franciska de, Mandemakers Kees, Schomaker Lambert & van Zundert Joris ‘Computational Humanities’ 2010 Amsterdam Computational Humanities Programme Committee, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) Retrieved 5 November 2016 from http://ehumanities.nl/beheer/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/computational-humanities-programmatekst-20101.pdf.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 347 | 30 | 6 |
| Full Text Views | 185 | 2 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 18 | 8 | 0 |
Data, Disciplines, and Dialogue: Lessons for Project Design
In: Asiascape: Digital AsiaSearch for other papers by Gerry van Klinken in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
A common assumption in Digital Humanities (dh) project design is that ‘data’ is simply there, ready to ‘drive’ the research. The funders of a dh project described in this paper adhered to this positivistic assumption in their founding White Paper. They saw disciplines as blinders, best left behind in order to better see ‘patterns’. However, positivism was not a real-world option for the social scientists, mathematicians, and information scientists engaged in this ‘blue sky’ project, which investigated digitized historical newspaper texts. Far from being a hindrance to their work, disciplinary traditions were central to any success they achieved. Instead of moving ‘beyond’ disciplines, they developed a pluralist, cross-disciplinary dialogue. Each participant contributed out of the epistemic convention that had proven fruitful in their discipline. The approach required an intellectual and emotional commitment to dialogue, and produced tantalizing rather than wholly satisfying results. But it holds promise of more.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 347 | 30 | 6 |
| Full Text Views | 185 | 2 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 18 | 8 | 0 |