LINGUIST List 4.1087

Tue 21 Dec 1993

FYI: Summer Seminar: Electronic Texts in the Humanities

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1. Susan Hockey, CETH 1994 Summer Seminar

CENTER FOR ELECTRONIC TEXTS IN THE HUMANITIES

Electronic Texts in the Humanities: Methods and Tools

The Third Annual Summer Seminar

at Princeton University, New Jersey
June 19 - July 1, 1994

organized by The Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities,
Princeton and Rutgers with the co-sponsorship of the Centre for
Computing in the Humanities, University of Toronto

The Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities (CETH) is again
offering an intensive two-week seminar in June 1994. The seminar will
address a wide range of challenges and opportunities that electronic
texts and software offer to teachers, scholars and librarians in the
humanities. Discussions on the capture, markup, retrieval,
presentation, transformation, and analysis of electronic text will
prepare students for extensive hands-on experience with illustrative
software, e.g., TACT, Micro-OCP, Dynatext, SGML tools, and hypertext.
Several large textual collections will be demonstrated so that
participants may make informed evaluations of their significance in
the light of current and future technologies. Approaches to markup,
from ad hoc schemes to the systematic design of the Text Encoding
Initiative, will be surveyed and considered.

The focus of the Seminar will be practical and methodological, with
the immediate aim of assisting participants in their own teaching,
research, and advising. It will be concerned with the demonstrable
benefits of using electronic texts, with typical problems and how to
solve them, and with the ways in which software fits or can be adapted
to common methods of textual study. Ample computing facilities will
be available 24 hours per day. Participants will be expected to
work on coherent projects, preferably of their own devising, and will
be given the opportunity to present them at the end of the seminar.

The Seminar is intended for faculty, students, librarians, technical
advisers, and academic administrators with direct responsibilities for
humanities computing support. It assumes basic computing experience
but not necessarily with its application to academic research and
teaching. The number of participants will be limited to 30.

The seminar will be taught by Susan Hockey, Director of CETH, and
Willard McCarty, Assistant Director of the Centre for Computing in
the Humanities, University of Toronto, with assistance from:
Elli Mylonas (Harvard) and David Durand (Boston University) for
hypertext, Peter Robinson (Oxford University) for scholarly
editions, and C.M. Sperberg-McQueen (University of Illinois at
Chicago) for SGML and TEI.

Provisional Schedule

Sun, June 19. Registration, reception and introductions

Mon, June 20. The electronic text: introduction and history; existing
 inventories, archives, and other current resources.
 History of computer-assisted text analysis in the
 humanities. Simple concordancing with MTAS. Text entry:
 keyboard vs. optical scanning. Introduction to text
 encoding, surveying ad hoc methods.

Tue, June 21. Concordancing: computer-assisted concordance generation;
 types of concordances, their specific advantages and
 disadvantages. Alphabetization, character sequences,
 sorting, and forms of presentation. Introduction to
 Micro-OCP; practical session in its use.

Wed, June 22. The interactive concordance: indexed, interactive
 retrieval vs. batch concordance generation. Preparation of
 text for indexed retrieval. Introduction to TACT.

Thu, June 23. Stylistic comparisons and authorship studies using
 concordance tools. Case studies. Overview of corpus
 linguistics. Introduction to the Standard Generalized
 Markup Language (SGML) and the Text Encoding Initiative
 (TEI).

Fri, June 24. The TEI Header: documentation for electronic texts.
 Overview of the TEI DTDs. Overview of available software.
 Creating TEI texts; validation; processing SGML texts.

Mon, June 27. Tools for preparing scholarly editions. Introduction to
 Collate and cladistics software. Electronic publication.
 Discussion of methods and implications. Role of Dynatext.
 Introduction to digitization of images.

Tue, June 28. Electronic dictionaries. The New OED and other online
 dictionaries. Uses of lexical knowledge bases in text
 retrieval. Building a simple online lexicon with TACT.

Wed, June 29. Hypertext and hypermedia and their development for
 the humanities. Comparative discussion of software.
 Demonstration and discussion of Perseus and other hypertexts
 such as In Memoriam.

Thu, June 30. Evaluation. Discussion on limitations of existing software.
 Overview of advanced analytical tools not commonly available;
 role of computational linguistics and artificial intelligence.

Fri, July 1. Presentation of participants' projects. Concluding discussion
 of basic questions.

Fees

The cost of participating in this Summer Seminar will be $995,
including tuition, use of computer facilities, and lunch at Princeton
for the two weeks, and banquet and reception. Students pay a reduced
rate of $845. Student accommodation is available at a cost of
approximately $25 per night. CETH will also assist successful
applicants in finding hotel accommodations. There will be 24-hour
access to networked microcomputers in the student accommodation
throughout the seminar.

Application Procedure

To apply for participation in this Summer Seminar, submit a one-page
statement of interest. The statement should indicate (1) how
participation in the Seminar would be relevant for your teaching,
research, advising or administrative work, and possibly that of your
colleagues; (2) what project you would like to undertake during the
Seminar, or what area of the humanities you would most like to
explore; and (3) the extent of your computing experience. Applications
must be attached to a cover sheet specifying your name, current
institutional affiliation and position, postal and e-mail addresses,
and phone and fax numbers, as available, as well as natural language
interest and computing experience. Currently enrolled students must
also include a photocopy of a valid student ID. E-mail submissions
should have a subject line `Summer Seminar Application'. The statement
must be received by the reviewing committee, consisting of members of
the Center's Governing Board, by FEBRUARY 9, 1994, at the address
below. Those who have been selected to attend will be notified by
March 9, 1994. Payment will be requested at this time.

Summer Seminar 1994
Center for Electronic phone: (908) 932-1384
Texts in the Humanities fax: (908) 932-1386
169 College Avenue bitnet: cethzodiac
New Brunswick, NJ 08903 internet: cethzodiac.rutgers.edu
U.S.A.