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Publicatie

Manuscript web

Boek - Dissertatie

Ondertitel:towards computer-assisted genetic criticism
Genetic criticism is a form of textual scholarship that studies the writing processes of literary works. It seeks not to constitute the most authentic text as intended by the author, but to reconstruct how the author created the work. While the discipline emerged in France in the 1970s, its more recent methodological development coincides with the rise of digital technologies. Although technology undeniably helps genetic critics to improve their research, the diversity of the digital research tools available today means humanists lose valuable time to computational training. Hence, the potential of the digital medium to assist genetic criticism is not yet exploited. The PhD thesis offers two complementary solutions to this dilemma. The first part elaborates on the demand for a comprehensive, yet easy-to-use, virtual research environment (VRE) that integrates heterogeneous research tools for genetic criticism into a coherent, web-based platform. Drawing on project development experience and the secondary literature, I argue that VRE developers need to contend with a number of generalisable trade-offs. To address these trade-offs, three interrelated design principles are introduced to help deliver on the promise of computer-assistance for genetic criticism. Applying these principles, Manuscript Web is proposed as a VRE prototype for computer-assisted genetic criticism. The user-friendly web environment models genetic criticism as a network of genetic paths, consisting of inter- and intratextual relations. The second part of the thesis evaluates the usability of automated Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) for genetic criticism. A case study explores the conditions and possibilities of the HTR environment Transkribus for the transcription of complex manuscripts by the Irish writer James Joyce. While the case study concludes that the tool is of limited use for genetic materials whose complexity rivals Joyce’s manuscripts, the final section of the thesis illustrates how specific tools developed around Transkribus may be adapted to fruitfully assist textual critics in identifying and capturing genetic relations. The greatest promise of existing HTR technologies for genetic criticism resides not in automating certain workflows but rather in enabling a different kind of methodological engagement with the materials of a digital scholarly edition. In sum, this dissertation demonstrates how the development of dedicated virtual research environments and the (re)purposing of select HTR technologies can complement one another in building new paths towards computer-assisted genetic criticism.
Aantal pagina's: 210
Jaar van publicatie:2021
Trefwoorden:Doctoral thesis
Toegankelijkheid:Closed