Author: digitalmedievalistnews

Seminar: GIS technology, network models, and the cult of the Great Gods of Samothrace

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Digital Classicist & Institute of Classical Studies Seminar 2011

Friday July 22nd at 16:30
Room 37, Senate House, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HU

Sandra Blakely (Emory)
Modeling the Mysteries:
GIS technology, network models, and the cult of the Great Gods of Samothrace
ALL WELCOME

The mystery cult of the Great Gods of Samothrace promised safety in sea travel as the reward for initiation. This ongoing project tests the hypothesis that the promise was real, effected through the human social networks created through initiation and festival participation. A GIS database of sites plots the locations of Samothracian affilitation, based on epigraphic and textual evidence for initiation, theoroi, proxenoi, koina, priesthoods and shrines; historical comparanda suggest the potential for these to support long distance maritime travel. Network models recommend the hypothesis that Samothrace functioned as a super-node connecting smaller independent networks, offering an economic argument for the cult’s longevity.
The seminar will be followed by wine and refreshments.

For more information please contact Gabriel.Bodard@kcl.ac.uk, Stuart.Dunn@kcl.ac.uk, S.Mahony@ucl.ac.uk, or see the seminar website at http://www.digitalclassicist.org/wip/wip2011.html

Posted by: Gabriel Bodard (gabriel.bodard@kcl.ac.uk).

EpiDoc Training Workshop

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EpiDoc Training Workshop
5-8 September 2011
Institute of Classical Studies, Senate House, London

An EpiDoc training workshop will be offered by the Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London, and the Institute for Classical Studies in September this year. The workshop is free of charge and open to all, but spaces are limited and registration as soon as possible is essential.

This workshop is an introduction to the use of EpiDoc, an XML schema for the encoding and publication of inscriptions, papyri and other documentary Classical texts. Participants will study the use of EpiDoc markup to record the distinctions expressed by the Leiden Conventions and traditional critical editions, and some of the issues in translating between EpiDoc and the major epigraphic and papyrological databases. They will also be given hands-on experience in the use of the Papyrological Editor tool implemented by the Duke Databank of Documentary Papyri, which facilitates the authoring EpiDoc XML via a ‘tags-free’ interface.

The course is targeted at scholars of epigraphy and papyrology (from advanced graduate students to professors) with an interest and willingness to learn some of the hands-on technical aspects necessary to run a digital project. Knowledge of Greek and/or Latin, the Leiden Conventions and the distinctions expressed by them, and the kinds of data that need to be recorded by philologists and ancient historians, will be assumed. No particular technical expertise is required.

Places on the EpiDoc training week are limited so if you are interested in attending the workshop or have any questions, please contact charlotte.tupman@kcl.ac.uk and gabriel.bodard@kcl.ac.uk as soon as possible with a brief statement of qualifications and interest.

Seminar on Semantics and Semantic Constructs in Cultural Comparison: The Case of Late Antiquity

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Digital Classicist & Institute of Classical Studies Seminar 2011

Friday July 8th at 16:30
Court Room, Senate House, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HU

Timothy Hill (New York University)
Semantics and Semantic Constructs in Cultural Comparison: The Case of Late Antiquity

As increasing numbers of historical datasets are made available online, the question of how best to mediate among them becomes more pressing. But the standard computational approach to such mediation, the creation of a unifying framework ‘over’ the datasets, is problematic in the context of historiography: often, for historians, the question of overarching ‘frame’ is itself the point at issue. This paper explores, with particular reference to Late Antique urban culture, the potential for electronic tools to free the historian from this reflexive bind, and facilitate an ‘experimental’ research approach to history, as advocated by e.g. Marcel Detienne and other classicist anthropologists.

The seminar will be followed by wine and refreshments.

ALL WELCOME

For more information please contact Gabriel.Bodard@kcl.ac.uk, Stuart.Dunn@kcl.ac.uk, S.Mahony@ucl.ac.uk, or see the seminar website at http://www.digitalclassicist.org/wip/wip2011.html

Posted by: Simon Mahony (simon.mahony@kcl.ac.uk).

Seminar on Classical Studies Facing Digital Research Infrastructures

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Digital Classicist & Institute of Classical Studies Seminar 2011

Friday July 1st at 16:30
Court Room, Senate House, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HU

Agiatis Benardou (Digital Curation Unit, R.C. “Athena”)
Classical Studies facing digital research infrastructures:
From practice to requirements

ALL WELCOME

In the context of Preparing DARIAH, the DCU engaged in a research programme consisting partly of an empirical study of scholarly research activity. The study involved 24 interviews, and the largest groups of interviewees included archaeologists, historians and classicists. What emerged was the diversity in the evidence and sources associated with Classical Studies nowadays. Classicists indicated that in addition to text-based research they also use objects, sites, and other historical-cultural material. This challenges earlier perceptions that Classicists only employ strictly linguistic/textual methods of research. Moreover, it indicates the evolving nature of Classics as an increasingly hybridized, thematic, and multi-methodological interdiscipline.

The seminar will be followed by wine and refreshments.

For more information please contact Gabriel.Bodard@kcl.ac.uk, Stuart.Dunn@kcl.ac.uk, S.Mahony@ucl.ac.uk, or see the seminar website at http://www.digitalclassicist.org/wip/wip2011.html

Posted by: Gabriel Bodard (gabriel.bodard@kcl.ac.uk).

Digital Classicist & Institute of Classical Studies Seminar

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Friday June 24th at 16:30
Court Room, Senate House, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HU

Alessandro Vatri (Oxford)
HdtDep: a treebank and search engine for Greek word order study

ALL WELCOME

HdtDep is a treebank and search engine based on the first book of Herodotus’ Histories. The structure of the sentences has been parsed applying a modified version of Mel’čuk’s dependency syntax, and has been encoded in an XML database. The search engine allows searching for precise dependency patterns involving specific grammatical categories or lexemes in exact sequences, and can easily be programmed through a user friendly graphic interface. This tool is especially designed for classicists and linguists investigating Greek word order—hence the choice of Herodotus’ prose as linguistic material—but can also be useful for teachers and language learners.
The seminar will be followed by wine and refreshments.

For more information please contact Gabriel.Bodard@kcl.ac.uk, Stuart.Dunn@kcl.ac.uk, S.Mahony@ucl.ac.uk, or see the seminar website at http://www.digitalclassicist.org/wip/wip2011.html

Posted by: Simon Mahony (simon.mahony@kcl.ac.uk).