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Hermeneutica: Computer-Assisted Interpretation in the Humanities

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"With increasing interest being shown in participatory research models, whether it be Wikipedia, World of Warcraft, participatory writing (like Montfort et al's 10 Print or Laurel et al's Design Research) or the more traditional communal research cultures of the arts collective or engineering lab, the Humanities is increasingly relying on computational tools to do the 'heavy lifting' necessary to process all of this information. Hermeneuti.ca, as its name implies, is about hermeneutical things--the computing tools of research that are usually hidden--how to use them, and how they are interpretative objects to be understood. Hermeneuti.ca is both a book and also a web site (http://hermeneuti.ca) that shows the interactive text analysis tools woven into the book. Essentially, Hermeneuti.ca is both a text about computer-assisted methods and a collection of analytical tools called Voyant (http://voyant-tools.org) that instantiate the authors ideas. While there is a definitely an emphasis on classic Digital Humanities work (corpus analysis, information retrieval, etc.), there is also a focus on the development of software as part of a project of knowledge that encompasses the idea of software as an active part of knowledge production that brings this book into the Software Studies series"--Provided by publisher.The image of the scholar as a solitary thinker dates back at least to Descartes'Discourse on Method. But scholarly practices in the humanities are changing as older forms of communal inquiry are combined with modern research methods enabled by the Internet, accessible computing, data availability, and new media. Hermeneutica introduces text analysis using computer-assisted interpretive practices. It offers theoretical chapters about text analysis, presents a set of analytical tools (called Voyant) that instantiate the theory, and provides example essays that illustrate the use of these tools. Voyant allows users to integrate interpretation into texts by creating hermeneutica -- small embeddable 'toys' that can be woven into essays published online or into such online writing environments as blogs or wikis. The book's companion website, Hermeneuti.ca, offers the example essays with both text and embedded interactive panels. The panels show results and allow readers to experiment with the toys themselves. The use of these analytical tools results in a hybrid essay: an interpretive work embedded with hermeneutical toys that can be explored for technique. The hermeneutica draw on and develop such common interactive analytics as word clouds and complex data journalism interactives. Embedded in scholarly texts, they create a more engaging argument. Moving between tool and text becomes another thread in a dynamic dialogue.OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.

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Series Title

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Call Number

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Publisher

Cambridge : The MIT Press., 2016

Collation

1 online resource (viii, 246 pages) :illustrations

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

9780262332064

Classification

NONE

Content Type

text

Media Type

computer

Carrier Type

online resource

Edition

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Subject(s)

Humanities
Digital humanities.

Specific Detail Info

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Statement of Responsibility

Geoffrey Rockwell and St?efan Sinclair.

Other Information

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oci

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Validator

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Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9522.001.0001

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