ENGLISH 607.48/517.67 - Humanities Computing

Instructor: Dr. Murray McGillivray

Thursday, 9:00 - 11:30

Mail to: mmcgilli [at] ucalgary [dot] ca

Course Description:

This course is a practical overview of the methods currently being used for computer-based acquisition, analysis, editing, and publishing of texts in the Humanities, an introduction to the application of computational methods to Humanities research problems, and an exploration of the basic principles of Humanities Computing, also known more recently as Digital Humanities. Students will leave the course able to use tools such as OCR programs, concordancing programs, text analysis suites such as TAPoR, text-comparison programs such as Jerome McGann's Juxta, XML and HTML editors, and Web publication software. Applications of computer technology such as authorship studies, identification of patterns of vocabulary use in fiction or extended poetry, publishing of Web sites, and electronic forms of editorial scholarship will be explored. The emphasis throughout will be on tools and methods that are open source, low cost, and standards-based. No previous experience with computer technology is assumed beyond word-processing, e-mail, and Web browsing. All course texts and many course tools will be downloaded by students at no cost. This course has a computer lab component.