by Jon Lackman | 18 November 2010 | Uncategorized
With a dash of overstatement perhaps, Patricia Cohen writes in The New York Times:
A history of the humanities in the 20th century could be chronicled in “isms” — formalism, Freudianism, structuralism, postcolonialism — grand intellectual cathedrals from which assorted interpretations of literature, politics and culture spread. The next big idea in language, history and the arts? Data.
According to Cohen,
Members of a new generation of digitally savvy humanists argue it is time to stop looking for inspiration in the next political or philosophical “ism” and start exploring how technology is changing our understanding of the liberal arts.
To her credit, Cohen introduces at least one note of circumspection, via Anthony Grafton: “I don’t believe quantification can do everything. So much of humanistic scholarship is about interpretation.”
One of Cohen’s subjects is medieval art historian Martin K. Foys, who wants to “create a digital map of the Bayeux Tapestry”:
No one person could digest the work’s enormous amount of material, and no single printing could render it accurately, so Mr. Foys created a prize-winning digital version with commentary that scholars could scroll through … His latest project, which he directs with Shannon Bradshaw, a computer scientist at Drew, and Asa Simon Mittman, an art historian from California State University, Chico, is an online network of medieval maps and texts that scholars can work on simultaneously. Once specific areas of maps are identified and tagged with information, it becomes possible to analyze and compare quantifiable data about images and sources, he explained, adding, “We have a whole new set of tools not dominated by the written word.” … “The ease with which a community can collaborate on the production of scholarship is something that is fundamentally changing the way we do our work,” said Mr. Foys, whose 2007 book, “Virtually Anglo-Saxon,” discusses the influence of technology on scholarship.
There are surely other examples from recent art-historical research, though I’m having trouble thinking of very many. James Elkins has done some interesting work analyzing where art history is produced, which scholars and concepts are most frequently cited in a given decade, and so on. Anyone want to add to the list in the comments below?
Byzantium 1200 is an interesting project.
http://www.byzantium1200.com/