Notes for John Bork “Exam 3 Question 2”

In one such possible galaxy of meaning where I answer as theorist-practitioner about one of my own projects aimed at advancing scholarship in the humanities, namely this dissertation.

(np) Spend a half hour or so exploring a software project focused on the digital humanities (choose one other than one your own). (If you have trouble finding one, consider the various case studies collected in Stanford University’s Mapping the Republic of Letters project at https://republicofletters.stanford.edu/, or browse through the featured digital projects at the National Endowment for the Humanities via http://www.neh.gov/divisions/odh). First, select a project of your choice and briefly describe the project, its data source(s), and the primary goals of the project authors. Then, using your knowledge of code studies and programming, and with the support of relevant authors from your reading list, explain how the project authors succeeded or fell short in their goals to use software to advance scholarship in the humanities. If the particular project you are analyzing were to be improved or polished to better teach, reveal, challenge, clarify, organize, or re-contextualize the source materials (as appropriate, according to the original goals of the project team), what would need to be done? Answer this question from the perspective of a theorist-practitioner.