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| Semester | fall semester 2020 |
| Course frequency | Once only |
| Lecturers | Tarrin Wills (tarrin.wills@unibas.ch, Assessor) |
| Content | This course aims to introduce general principles of how to understand the connection between research questions, data models and methods in the field of Old Norse studies. It will be geared towards the individual research and study interests of the participating students. The first two half-day sessions involve: ● An introduction to different data types: tree (XML), table, relational data and graph models; ● Exploration of different methods that can be applied to each, including (quantitative) statistical analysis, network analysis; and (qualitative) text critical, comparative, identifying unusual and exceptional examples; ● Choosing technologies and methods most appropriate to a problem, including a brief introduction to encoding languages, programming languages and query languages; ● Development of a small project using one or more of the above methods to deal with a particular problem. In the second pair of sessions we will go through the initial methods and any possible results of the project and address problems that have arisen. Students are encouraged to collaborate and share the knowledge they have gained. The course is designed to be student-led and may be modified according to the particular needs and interests of the participants. Preparation Students are invited to contact Tarrin Wills if they have any questions about the following preparatory tasks. 1. Analysis of existing resources Familiarise yourself with at least two of the following resources (choose what is most relevant to your project): ● Dictionary of Old Norse Prose (https://onp.ku.dk) ● Icelandic Saga Map (http://sagamap.hi.is/is/) ● Runic Inscriptions Through Time & Space (https://www.runinskrifter.net) ● Handrit.is (https://handrit.is) ● Skaldic Project (https://skaldic.abdn.ac.uk) ● Menotas tekstarkiv (http://clarino.uib.no/menota/catalogue) ● Stories for All Time (http://fasnl.ku.dk) ● Málföng fyrir íslensku - Fornritin (http://www.malfong.is/?pg=fornritin) ● Icelandic Parsed Historical Corpus (IcePaHC) (https://linguist.is/icelandic_treebank/Icelandic_Parsed_Historical_Corpus_(IcePaHC)) You should consider these questions: ● What kinds of information are available through the site/resource? E.g. textual, linguistic, visual, geographical, material, etc. ● What are the material / physical sources that lie behind the resources? Is it clear how the data relate to their sources? ● How do you think the data are or could be stored (what format or structure)? Can the source data be downloaded, and under what conditions? ● How do you find information in the resource? E.g. Searching, browsing, more complex queries/searches, links between pages ● How could the data be used to answer research questions related to your area? ● What is missing from the data or search possibilities that would otherwise help with your work? 2. Analysis of own materials Think about your own studies so far. Have you more or less systematically collected material (texts, examples, words, etc.) for your papers or projects? If so, what categories have you applied to that material in trying to understand it? Can they or their relationships be represented digitally, and if so, how? If not, is there material relating to your project/studies that could be collected digitally? If you can find a way to structure this information in a table, tree diagram or other kind of systematic way, do so, and bring it to the seminar. |
| Learning objectives | By the end of the course the students will be able to understand different data model types and how they can represent different types of information related to the field of Old Norse studies; students will understand how to formulate a research question in terms that can be solved using digital methods; and understand which digital methods can be applied to their material in order to answer a formulated research question. |
| Bibliography | This course is designed to address a very broad range of research questions and therefore does not present a full reading list as such, but rather some examples of starting points. Students are encouraged to search the main journal for digital humanities, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities (but see also Digital Medievalist). Contact Tarrin Wills if there is a need for further direction. There are some introductory works such as levenberg et al. Research Methods for the Digital Humanities (Palgrave Macmillan 2018). Some specific applications of digital methods in Old Norse studies include: ● Mac Carron, P., Kenna, R. Network analysis of the Íslendinga sögur – the Sagas of Icelanders. Eur. Phys. J. B 86, 407 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2013-40583-3 ● Tarrin Wills, Relational data modelling of textual corpora: The Skaldic Project and its extensions, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, Volume 30, Issue 2, June 2015, Pages 294–313, https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqt045 ● Urban K, Tangherlini TR, Vijūnas A, Broadwell PM (2014) Semi-Supervised Morphosyntactic Classification of Old Icelandic. PLoS ONE 9(7): e102366. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0102366 ● Hall, A. and Parsons, K., 2013. Making stemmas with small samples, and digital approaches to publishing them: testing the stemma of Konráðs saga keisarasonar. Digital Medievalist, 9. DOI: http://doi.org/10.16995/dm.51 |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Use of digital media | No specific media used |
| Interval | Weekday | Time | Room |
|---|
No dates available. Please contact the lecturer.
| Modules |
Doktorat Skandinavistik: Empfehlungen (PhD subject: Scandinavian Studies) Literary Studies: Recommendations (PhD subject: Literary Studies) Modul: Literaturwissenschaftliche Praxis (Editionsphilologie, Literarisches Übersetzen, Literaturkritik) (Master's degree program: Literary Studies) Modul: Skandinavische Mediävistik (Master's degree subject: Nordic Philology) |
| Assessment format | continuous assessment |
| Assessment registration/deregistration | Reg.: course registration; dereg.: not required |
| Repeat examination | no repeat examination |
| Scale | 1-6 0,5 |
| Repeated registration | no repetition |
| Responsible faculty | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Offered by | Fachbereich Nordistik |