Data-Driven Hermeneutics: Historical Judgement in Computer-Aided Research
On the surface, Big Data seems an obvious and rewarding new frontier for historians, with digitisation offering new insights on a grand scale. However, as an observational rather than experimental discipline, and with datasets particularly prone to unfillable gaps owing to labyrinthine copyright claims and an uneven electronic public domain, data-driven historical research can appear either impossible or thoroughly undesirable. Yet, the sentiments behind open data and methodological reproducibility are part of the very fabric of the humanities, with its tradition of documented hermeneutics and thoroughly provenanced evidence. This talk will discuss the historiographical tradition of reproducibility and how we might build upon these rich traditions in an age of data-driven results.
Date: 22 February 2022, 15:00 (Tuesday, 6th week, Hilary 2022)
Venue: online
Speaker: Dr Melodee Beals (Loughborough University)
Organising department: Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics
Organisers: Nilo Pedrazzini (University of Oxford), Dr Malika Ihle (University of Oxford)
Hosts: Nilo Pedrazzini (University of Oxford), Dr Megan Gooch (Head of the Centre for Digital Scholarship and Digital Humanities Support, University of Oxford)
Part of: Open Humanities Seminar Series
Booking required?: Required
Booking url: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUkfuyuqzgoE9J1HU218kdzY8phduHhiNs3
Cost: free
Audience: Public
Editor: Malika Ihle