In recent years, having evolved beyond solely play-based interactions, it is now possible to analyze video games alongside other narrative forms, such as novels and films. Video games now involve rich stories that require input and interaction on behalf of the player. This level of agency likens video games to a kind of modern hypertext, networking and weaving various narrative threads together, something which traditional modes of media lack. When examined from the lens of reader-response criticism, this interaction deepens even further, acknowledging the player’s experience as a valid interpretation of a video game’s plot. The wide freedom of choice available to players, in terms of both play and story, in 2007’s Mass Effect, along with its critical reception, represents a turning point in the study of video games as literature, exemplifying the necessity for player input in undergoing a narrative-filled journey. Active participation and non-linear storytelling, typified through gaming, are major steps in the next the evolution of narrative techniques, which requires the broadening of literary criticism to incorporate this new development.

This dissertation explores gender codes within the intersection of two American pop culture staples, video games and rock music, by conducting a feminist analysis of two video games (Rock Band and Rocksmith). Both video games and rock music have had their share of feminist academic critique: Musicologists point out how lack of canonical inclusion, gendered attitudes towards instruments, and messages from supporting media create an unwelcome environment for women to pursue a rock music career. Game studies scholars have examined similar attitudes, including a lack of women represented in both the video games and the studios that create them. Through a mix of creator and player interviews, participant observation, content analysis, and autoethnography, I look at the intersection of these two literatures (the rock music video game) to see how gender is hard-coded into the game, and what opportunities, if any, exist for subversion of societal and industry gender norms. Through not just looking at the game as text, I present a more “thick description” of a video game that takes into account the creators of the games, the players that play them, and a researcher that occupies multiple identities within the space. I argue that, in an effort to replicate an authentic rock musician experience in a video game, Rock Band and Rocksmith often replicate a lot of these gendered messages. The games’ text and set list emphasize a male-centric rock music canon. Rocksmith’s original whiskey-soaked visual design and marketing skew heavily towards an older male demographic. However, resistances to these codes exist in both the players who defy expectations by showing up to perform and compete, as well as the creators who actively work to make these games more inclusive via changes to future games as well as inclusive hiring practices, marketing, and music sourcing (with varying degrees of success).

A griotte in West African culture is a female professional storyteller, responsible for preserving a tribe's history and genealogy by relaying its folklore in oral and musical recitations. Similarly, Griotte is an interdisciplinary project that seeks to foster collaboration between tradition bearers, subject experts, and computer specialists in an effort to build high quality digital oral history collections. To accomplish this objective, this project preserves the primary strength of oral history, namely its ability to disclose "our" intangible culture, and addresses its primary criticism, namely its dubious reliability due to reliance on human memory and integrity. For a theoretical foundation and a systematic model, William Moss's work on the evidentiary value of historical sources is employed. Using his work as a conceptual framework, along with Semantic Web technologies (e.g. Topic Maps and ontologies), a demonstrator system is developed to provide digital oral history tools to a "sample" of the target audience(s). This demonstrator system is evaluated via two methods: 1) a case study conducted to employ the system in the actual building of a digital oral history collection (this step also created sample data for the following assessment), and 2) a survey which involved a task-based evaluation of the demonstrator system. The results of the survey indicate that integrating oral histories with documentary evidence increases the evidentiary value of oral histories. Furthermore, the results imply that individuals are more likely to use oral histories in their work if their evidentiary value is increased. The contributions of this research – primarily in the area of organizing metadata on the World Wide Web – and considerations for future research are also provided.

數位人文是近年來數位科技應用的一種重要趨勢，是一個結合數位技術與人文研究的新興領域，透過資訊科學的技術並結合大量數位化的文史資料，輔助文史學者進行較深入的人文研究，彌補並獲得在數位化之前無法用人工逐一比對所觀察到的現象或新的詮釋。 本研究以「中國近現代思想及文學史專業數據庫」的大量文史資料作為基礎，希望建構出一個能協助文史學者對中國近現代史的歷史觀念或現象較有效率的進行分析之檢索系統。本系統讓研究者可以透過具代表性的檢索詞彙與檢索條件搜尋出與欲研究的議題相關的文獻集合，再利用PAT Tree(Patricia tree)技術與自身的專業知識，擷取出研究議題底下的專業關鍵詞彙，並針對有興趣的關鍵詞彙或關鍵詞彙組合進行相關的時序分析，提供研究者以不同的面向觀察並詮釋出新的趨勢和結論。 我們找了一些具有文史工作相關背景經驗的使用者來實際使用本系統，並進行系統滿意度的評估，從評估的結果得知大部份的使用者都給了不錯的滿意度回饋，顯示本系統對於研究者在進行相關的文史研究上，可以達到一定程度的助益。 / In recent years, digital humanities have become an important trend of the application of information technologies. It’s an emerging field by combining information technologies with humanities studies. Historians can make intensive humanities studies through the combination of information science technologies and numerous digitized historical data, finding the new historical phenomenon that cannot be obtained by manual handling the historical data. In this paper, we construct an information retrieval and analysis system based on the text material available at the Database for the Study of Modern Chinese Thought and Literature that can help historians to make historical studies more efficiently. The system can let historians find the key documents which are related to the historical studies they make by representative search word. Besides, the system can use the PAT Tree (Patricia tree) method to extract useful keywords, with the help of historians to finalize the keyword selection. The system can also do the time analysis of one keyword or two keywords and help historians make new conclusions of historical studies. We let some people who have historical work experience use the system and let them evaluate the system. Most of the evaluation results are good. It means that the system can help historians to make historical studies more efficiently.

Neste trabalho apresenta-se um estudo lológico conduzido sobre um manuscrito do século XVII contido no COD. 13282 da Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal o Sumario de todas as cousas succedidas em Berberia desde o tempo que começou a reinar o Xarife Mulei Mahamet no anno de 1573 te o m do anno de sua morte 1578 no dia da batalha d\'Alcaçer Quibir, em que se perdeo Dom Sebastiam Rey de Portugal. Além do códice em questão, o texto é registrado em outro manuscrito o Ms. No 41, Serie 2422 da Biblioteca Nacional de Espanha, editado em 1987 por Francisco Loureiro com o título Crónica do Xarife Mulei Mahamet e del-Rey D. Sebastião (1573-1578). O tratamento reservado ao texto por Loureiro a preferência por uma edição modernizada, não precedida por outra que respeitasse a língua original, unido ao fato de o estudioso desconhecer o manuscrito da BNP dene um problema. O que se esconde por trás da proposta de Loureiro é a representação de uma questão maior, que abarca difusamente as práticas de publicação dos relatos e crônicas sobre as relações luso-marroquinas. Por isso, fez-se essencial repassar as principais perspectivas metodológicas concernentes às edições deste conjunto documental. A partir de tal reexão, o presente trabalho assume como tarefa disponibilizar ao público acadêmico uma fonte para a História da Língua em uma forma adequada, propondo uma descrição codicológica do manuscrito da BNP juntamente com sua edição diplomática. A metodologia adotada reete principalmente a proposta teórica de Ivo Castro e Maria Ana Ramos (1986), que sugerem basear as escolhas editorias na distinção entre estratégia e táticas de transcrição, introduzindo o conceito de campo bibliográco. / In this work we report on a philological study of a 17th century manuscript included in COD. 13282 of the National Library of Portugal the Sumario de todas as cousas succedidas em Berberia desde o tempo que começou a reinar o Xarife Mulei Mahamet no anno de 1573 te o m do anno de sua morte 1578 no dia da batalha d\'Alcaçer Quibir, em que se perdeo Dom Sebastiam Rey de Portugal. The text is also contained in the Ms. No 41 Serie 2422 of the National Library of Spain, published in 1987 by Francisco Loureiro, who entitled it Crónica do Xarife Mulei Mahamet e del-Rey D. Sebastião (1573-1578). However, Loureiro\'s editorial choices (e.g. his preference for a modernized edition, not preceded by another that would respect the original language of the text, besides the fact he was not aware of the existence of the BNP manuscript) represent a problem. Moreover, Loureiro\'s proposal takes back to a broader issue, which regards the publication practices of the chronicles and historical accounts about Portuguese occupation of Barbary. Therefore, we examined the main methodologies used for the publication of these documents. From these reections, we assumed the task of making a linguistic source avaliable to the academic audience, by proposing a codicological description of the BNP manuscript and its diplomatic edition. The methodology adopted refers mainly to the theoretical proposal of Ivo Castro and Maria Ana Ramos (1986), who suggest to establish the editorial criteria upon the distinction between transcription strategy and tactics and introduce the concept of bibliographical eld.

Digitization that has enabled instant access to vast numbers of archival, historical images, demands a new paradigm for the use of visual imagery in historical research. This thesis proposes a new form of historiography in the digital medium, an image-based narrative mode for authoring and reading history. I propose a digital model for conveying history through the visual record, as an alternative to the printed book. Unlike the quantitative “big data” approach to digital humanities, this research explores visuality itself. In a practice-led approach, the research addresses both aspects of historiography: (1) a method of historical representation; and (2) original historical work on a selected topic. The testbed for historiographic and narrative experiments which led to the model was my case study on the Boxer Uprising in China, c. 1900. While many written histories of the Boxer Uprising exist, I collected a large portion of its extensive visual record for the first time. Sources from around the world, in a variety of media, were assembled into a digital data set that reveals previously unexplored historical themes. A series of visual narratives built in the case study culminated in a proposed “Visual Narrative Field” model. In this model, meaning emerges in the patterns observed between images within a complex visual field. The model vertically integrates three narrative approaches in order to support alternating cognitive modes used to read texts and perceive images. Linear concentration is blended with the non-linear exploration of interactive forms. The model provides historians with a much-needed tool for authoring narrative through relationships between images in a scalable approach. Due to digitization, visual databases are easily assembled, and images are as easily reproduced as written text. The Visual Narrative Field model takes advantage of the characteristics of the newly-digitized visual record, providing a means of authoring visual narrative that can be comprehended without the use of extensive written text. The model thus creates an unprecedented image-based method for performing and presenting historical research.

The paper reports findings from a FAIR principles-based research project dedicated to investigating how cross-field research between the DH and Sociotechnical Sustainable Transport Research could help to enhance the holistic understanding of sociotechnical low-carbon transport transitions.  Using the hashtag search queries #sustainabletransport and #sustainablemobility, 33,121 Tweets (2013-2021) and 8,089 Instagram images including captions (2017/2018-2021) were mined using Python scripts. Quantitative text and sentiment analyses were applied to the Tweets and image captions. Additionally, an automated image analysis using the Instagram dataset was conducted. Synthesized results formed the base for the cross-platform analysis comprising: 1) hot topics, 2) mentioned users, 3) sentiment, 4) co-hashtags. Data were visualized via Tableau, Excel, RAWGraphs, and Bubbl.us. Whereas electromobility, one of Holden et al.’s Grand Narratives for sustainable mobility, has been significantly present in the digital discourse on both platforms (especially Instagram), #sustainabletransport has been closely associated with active transport, especially bicycling, and #sustainablemobility with the electromobility theme. The study has demonstrated the investigative potentials of cross-field cross-platform social media analysis studies and ultimately DH to enhance the understanding of sociotechnical low-carbon transport transitions. Drawing on core results, the paper also suggests an adapted version of the Geelsean Multi-Level Perspective.

Whereas past and current digital projects in ancient language studies have been concerned with the annotation of linguistic elements and metadata, there is now an increased interest in the annotation of elements above the linguistic level that are determined by context – like figurative language. Such projects bring their own set of problems (the automatisation of annotation is more difficult, for instance), but also allow us to develop new ways of examining the data. For this reason, we have attempted to take an already annotated database of Ancient Egyptian texts and develop a complementary tagging layer rather than starting from scratch with a new database. In this paper, we present our work in developing a metaphor annotation layer for the Late Egyptian text database of Projet Ramsès (Université de Liège) and in so doing address more general questions: 1) How to ‚tailor-make’ annotation layers to fit other databases? (Workflow) 2) How to make annotations that are flexible enough to be altered in the course of the annotation process? (Project design) 3) What kind of potential do such layers have for integration with existing and future annotations? (Sustainability)

Traditionally, humanities scholars carrying out research on a specific or on multiple literary work(s) are interested in the analysis of related texts or text passages. But the digital age has opened possibilities for scholars to enhance their traditional workflows. Enabled by digitization projects, humanities scholars can nowadays reach a large number of digitized texts through web portals such as Google Books or Internet Archive. Digital editions exist also for ancient texts; notable examples are PHI Latin Texts and the Perseus Digital Library. This shift from reading a single book “on paper” to the possibility of browsing many digital texts is one of the origins and principal pillars of the digital humanities domain, which helps developing solutions to handle vast amounts of cultural heritage data – text being the main data type. In contrast to the traditional methods, the digital humanities allow to pose new research questions on cultural heritage datasets. Some of these questions can be answered with existent algorithms and tools provided by the computer science domain, but for other humanities questions scholars need to formulate new methods in collaboration with computer scientists. Developed in the late 1980s, the digital humanities primarily focused on designing standards to represent cultural heritage data such as the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) for texts, and to aggregate, digitize and deliver data. In the last years, visualization techniques have gained more and more importance when it comes to analyzing data. For example, Saito introduced her 2010 digital humanities conference paper with: “In recent years, people have tended to be overwhelmed by a vast amount of information in various contexts. Therefore, arguments about ’Information Visualization’ as a method to make information easy to comprehend are more than understandable.” A major impulse for this trend was given by Franco Moretti. In 2005, he published the book “Graphs, Maps, Trees”, in which he proposes so-called distant reading approaches for textual data that steer the traditional way of approaching literature towards a completely new direction. Instead of reading texts in the traditional way – so-called close reading –, he invites to count, to graph and to map them. In other words, to visualize them. This dissertation presents novel close and distant reading visualization techniques for hitherto unsolved problems. Appropriate visualization techniques have been applied to support basic tasks, e.g., visualizing geospatial metadata to analyze the geographical distribution of cultural heritage data items or using tag clouds to illustrate textual statistics of a historical corpus. In contrast, this dissertation focuses on developing information visualization and visual analytics methods that support investigating research questions that require the comparative analysis of various digital humanities datasets. We first take a look at the state-of-the-art of existing close and distant reading visualizations that have been developed to support humanities scholars working with literary texts. We thereby provide a taxonomy of visualization methods applied to show various aspects of the underlying digital humanities data. We point out open challenges and we present our visualizations designed to support humanities scholars in comparatively analyzing historical datasets. In short, we present (1) GeoTemCo for the comparative visualization of geospatial-temporal data, (2) the two tag cloud designs TagPies and TagSpheres that comparatively visualize faceted textual summaries, (3) TextReuseGrid and TextReuseBrowser to explore re-used text passages among the texts of a corpus, (4) TRAViz for the visualization of textual variation between multiple text editions, and (5) the visual analytics system MusikerProfiling to detect similar musicians to a given musician of interest. Finally, we summarize our and the collaboration experiences of other visualization researchers to emphasize the ingredients required for a successful project in the digital humanities, and we take a look at future challenges in that research field.

Samuel Beckett penned novels, short stories, poetry, stage plays, radio plays, and scripts—and he did each in a way that blended genre, challenged the norms of creative writing, and surprised audiences around the globe. His experimental approach to creative writing included the use of absurdism, genre-hybridization, and ergodicism, which led to Beckett fundamentally changing the approach to creative writing. His aesthetics have trickled down through the years and can be seen in contemporary works, including Aimee Bender’s short story collection The Girl in the Flammable Skirt and Mark Z. Danielewski’s novel House of Leaves[1]. By examining these works in comparison to Beckett, this project hopes to illuminate the effects of Beckett’s experimentation in form and genre on contemporary creative writing. [1] The word ‘house’ appears in blue to honor Danielewski’s decision to have the word printed in that color each time it appears in his novel.