From Side-Line to Specialization: the Rise of Computational Humanities

Gregory CraneProfessor of Classics

Editor in Chief, Perseus ProjectWinnick Family Chair in Technology

and Entrepreneurship

A Digital Library for the Humanities

• Ancient Egypt (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

• Early Modern Critical Editions (New Variorum Shakespeare Series)

• History and Topography of London (Tufts Archives)

• History of Mechanics (MPI Berlin for the History of Science)

Technology and Humanities

• Strategic Goals of the Humanities– Preserving and Enhancing the Memory of

Humanity– Disseminating this Memory as rigorously and

broadly as possible

• Information Technology– Affects each goal individually– Establish tensions / synergies between each

The Challenge

• Technology is a catalyst for strategic change

• No one knows how to serve current goals

• What goals will emerge in the future?

• The path of least resistance is not an option

Models for Change

• Established organization seeks to enhance a tactical objective

• The “amplification” leads to such quantitative effects that qualitative changes ensue.

• The catalytic process feeds back into the original organization

The Parergon Process

• Pericles and the Peloponnesian League– Naval power not a parergon, “side-task”– Naval power takes over the system

• Application of Computing to Classics– 1982: Presented as “consulting” experts– Evolution into a full-time specialty

• Analogues: Bioinformatics

“Pre-cognitive Systems” and Intellectual Inquiry

• Computational Humanities and Bioinformatics — particular cases of a more general phenomenon

• National Science Digital Library reflects commonality of problems

• Long term: study of IT and all intellectual inquiry

• Short term: evolution from disciplinary origins to common subject

Classics and the Humanities

• Transformation is a long-term process– Structural effects only now starting to be felt– Change does not come from the center– We are only now beginning to understand what

is happening• Driving force: Zipf’s Economy of Effort

“New Humanities”

• Larger Research Projects — “big science”– Eastern Mediterranean rather than simply

Greece, Egypt etc.– History of Mechanics

• More emphasis on collaboration– Face to face laboratories– Virtual collaborations

Three Dimensions of Impact

• Improving Traditional Scholarship– Making classicists etc. more “productive”

• Stimulating better interdisciplinary work– E.g., non-classicists working directly with

Greek

• Invigorating relationship between the humanities and society as a whole

Different Priorities

• Generation of Power From Fusion– Research predominant

• AIDS research/Environmental Studies– Research and outreach balanced

• Humanities Research– Outreach ultimately justifies research– Consequences for Computational Humanities

Computational Humanities

• Experimental Dimension needs Technical infrastructure

• Requires access to and control over large bodies of data

• Requires heterogeneous data — simulating a library

• Requires rights to disseminate so as to study usage by the broader population

Computational Humanities (cont.)

• Must study many domains: e.g., classics vs. 19th century history; monolingual vs. multilingual

• New Interdisciplinary alliances: GIS, 3D design, spatial cognition, text comprehension, cross-language IR, CHI, etc.

• Still at an early stage: no strong theoretical program yet.

Problems

• In the US, “Disneyfication” — resistance to public funding of cultural heritage.

• No departmental home for computational humanities: – CH overlaps with, but is not subsumed by

Computer and Information Science, various disciplines in the humanities

• Progress made despite institutional boundaries

Greatest Challenges

• How do we train researchers in this field?– Postdocs that lead to disciplinary jobs– What about true specialists in this area?

• Where can they acquire a “Phd”?

• Economic challenges:– What is optimal balance between public/private?– How do we pay for development without

exacerbating the “digital divide”?

Successful Models: US

• National Endowment for the Humanities and NSF collaboration on Digital Library Inititative– Ad hoc rather than permanent, but v. important– Provides incentives and environment for true

interdisciplinary collaboration

• National Science Digital Library– Extensible to the humanities and social sciences

Possible Model: Germany/MPG

• “Max Planck”Institute Technology and Inquiry with teams for– Humanities– Social Sciences– Natural Sciences– “Core Integration System” (as with NSDL)

Conclusions -1

• Identifying new areas of research: A genuinely hard problem — how often do disciplines change from within vs. in response to external stimuli?– E.g., Cold War and US Research Industry– In our first decade of work, we had to succeed

despite the established reward system.

Conclusions -2

• Monitoring Progress– Tenure and Promotion do not simply count

publications, prestigious venues and citations• Multiple experts look beyond superficial features

– Yearly raises etc. more mechanical– Main problem: “start-up costs”

• It may take years to develop a coherent research agenda

Conclusions-3

• Exploiting the Potential of IT– Reward strong disciplinary starts– Stimulate new interdisciplinary collaborations– Foster new areas (e.g. Bioinformatics)

Conclusions-4• From Social Pressures to New Research

– Popular Revolt in US against NEH/NEA– Challenge to Rethink Role of Arts and Hum– Revived Debates on Old Topics– Research into complex role of IT as catalyst and tool

• Technology important because it forces the Humanists to study their traditional goals from new perspectives.

Big Picture

• Previous Great Shift:– Monastery to the University

• Current Shift:– From University to some new network based

community– Just as profound but much faster

• Greatest opportunities and challenges for humanists in five hundred years.