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| - | == Wolfgang Kaltenbrunner == | + | == Suzan van Dijk == |
| <br><br><br> | <br><br><br> | ||
| - | '''Scholarly labor and digital collaboration in literary studies'''<br><br> | + | '''Participation as a way of creating new audiences ?'''<br><br> |
| ''Abstract'' <br><br> | ''Abstract'' <br><br> | ||
| - | Digital research technology as a tool for humanities scholarship has attracted considerable attention. It is often promised to facilitate collaboration among otherwise scattered, 'lone scholars', and as potentially allowing them to take advantage of large amounts of empirical material. In particular, digital research technology is often promoted by stressing how it can reduce human workload – the use of data-intensive tools in literary studies, thus the promise of project such as 'Digging Into Data', will allow scholars to vastly reduce the amount of time necessary to discover and analyze large corpora of texts. However, on the basis of participant observation and interviews conducted in the first two years of the COST Action ''Women Writers In History'', I argue that digital tools for literary research do not only reduce human work load. Instead, they also require a significant input of human labor in order to properly embed them in scholarly research practices. To deliver on the exciting promises of digitally enhanced scholarship, these challenges must be taken seriously. <br><br> | + | This Action, “Women Writers In History”, had the chance of being embedded in an extremely beneficial scholarly context: that of Huygens ING. All Action members have had, in different ways, the benefice of it, most particularly those (mostly) young researchers, who came here and participated in Training Schools, which took place in the Schurman room, and concerned first of all the work to be done in the ''WomenWriters'' database.<br><br> |
| - | In order to grasp the implications of collaborative, digital scholarship for literary studies, it is important to understand how scholarly labor in this field has traditionally been organized. A valuable starting point for this can be found in the work of Richard Whitley (2000), who provides a comparative analysis of how fields of research differ in their organizational characteristics. Literary studies as a field is characterized by the co-existence of multiple theoretical perspectives. The organization of labor is oriented towards the development of original arguments, delivered in scholarly monographs. The shared use of a digital database on the other hand requires a coordination of individual efforts. Inevitably, this results in a certain tension between the investment of scholars in existing disciplinary paradigms and the participation in a collaborative European project. <br><br> | + | On the content level it was/is important that many links do exist between our research into transnational reception of female authors, and other projects going on at Huygens ING: transnational learned networks, for instance, are studied in the CKCC project (Circulation of Knowledge); biographies of Dutch women (writers and other) have been provided online in the DVN and in a heavy bio-bibliographical compilation entitled ''1001 vrouwen'' (1001 women).<br><br> |
| - | This tension manifests itself for example in the duality of the theoretical decisions that inform the categories of the database (bio-bibliographic information, genre etc.). In line with the theoretical plurality of the humanities, definitions of concepts such as genre often are a matter of debate in literary studies. Scholars identify themselves not least by developing and defending an individual theoretical perspective. In the context of a collaborative database project, however, the theoretical choices that inform the development of data categories also have practical implications. Settling on a shared scheme of categories is a pragmatic requirement for advancing the project. This in turn can mean that participants find it hard to embed the database in their individual analytical perspective. <br><br> | + | New Huygens ING projects have also been inspired by our way of approaching reception: recently started CODL (Circulation of Dutch Literature) will use a digital infrastructure similar to the one of the ''WomenWriters'' database.<br><br> |
| - | Another tension arises from the need to invest time in data input. While data input is important for reaching a critical amount of information on which to base comparative empirical claims, this labor is generally not rewarded in the context of a traditional research career. Often, it is associated with a subordinate technical activity. At the same time, it is through data input that individual scholars often find ways of creatively embedding the database into their individual research practices. <br><br> | + | The Dutch “section” of the Action, entitled ''Dutch Women Writers'' (after the example of ''Portuguese Women Writers''), has also been connected to other projects and has taken initiatives. We have provided a series of “HOVO” lectures in Utrecht (February-April 2013) about eight of “our” 18th- and 19th-century authors. And we are aware that the COST-WWIH large-scale digital approach needs to be complemented by smaller scale and “human” work – which led to the following other projects.<br><br> |
| - | Finally, building a database requires a dedicated effort to provide quality control of digital data. In contrast to traditional sources of empirical information, such as bibliographies, library catalogues, and archives, this work cannot be delegated to dedicated data workers. Instead, a certain labor investment is necessary to harmonize and better understand the growing dataset. This, however, creates a tension with many participants' expectation that they can draw on the database as an empirical source for their individual research practice. | + | Concerning the small scale: some women authors need to get more attention than just a couple of records in the database: Belle van Zuylen / Isabelle de Charrière is clearly one of those. Some years ago already, we decided that her correspondence (available in paper form thanks to the Van Oorschot edition 1979-1984) should be made available online. And now indeed, a project using the Huygens ING application called ''eLaborate'', is dedicated to this digitizing. It is done with the help of a small group of interested non-specialists who are members of the Dutch Isabelle de Charrière Association. They practice what we call “crowdsourcing”.<br><br> |
| + | But we must not exclude that some human attention might be given also to (seemingly) less exceptional authors, for whom – thanks to our collective research – we have discovered their playing a role in the literary field of their time. Those eight women authors who were presented to HOVO students earlier this year, clearly attracted their interest, and we now think about the possibility of inviting these non-specialists for collaborating in another “crowdsourcing” enterprise: suggesting that they might read – as “test readers” – those texts we “discover” and consider important for historical reasons. Are they also interesting, or even fascinating, or just intriguing for modern readers?<br><br> | ||
| + | |||
| + | This would be not unlike what happens in Huygens ING project that started last year and is entitled “The Riddle of Literary Quality”, where present-day readers are invited to comment upon their reading of present-day popular literature. Our “test readers” would evaluate 19th-century female, at the time very popular texts, and in doing so would give an impression of the possibility, for some of these women, to reach a larger audience even in this 21st century – perhaps firstly a women’s audience, for whom it can be important to realize that history can be rewritten… <br><br> | ||
| + | |||
| + | This idea will be further developed and discussed, as being in fact one of the final objectives of research like the one we are carrying out. | ||
Revision as of 13:12, 31 May 2013
Suzan van Dijk
Participation as a way of creating new audiences ?
Abstract
This Action, “Women Writers In History”, had the chance of being embedded in an extremely beneficial scholarly context: that of Huygens ING. All Action members have had, in different ways, the benefice of it, most particularly those (mostly) young researchers, who came here and participated in Training Schools, which took place in the Schurman room, and concerned first of all the work to be done in the WomenWriters database.
On the content level it was/is important that many links do exist between our research into transnational reception of female authors, and other projects going on at Huygens ING: transnational learned networks, for instance, are studied in the CKCC project (Circulation of Knowledge); biographies of Dutch women (writers and other) have been provided online in the DVN and in a heavy bio-bibliographical compilation entitled 1001 vrouwen (1001 women).
New Huygens ING projects have also been inspired by our way of approaching reception: recently started CODL (Circulation of Dutch Literature) will use a digital infrastructure similar to the one of the WomenWriters database.
The Dutch “section” of the Action, entitled Dutch Women Writers (after the example of Portuguese Women Writers), has also been connected to other projects and has taken initiatives. We have provided a series of “HOVO” lectures in Utrecht (February-April 2013) about eight of “our” 18th- and 19th-century authors. And we are aware that the COST-WWIH large-scale digital approach needs to be complemented by smaller scale and “human” work – which led to the following other projects.
Concerning the small scale: some women authors need to get more attention than just a couple of records in the database: Belle van Zuylen / Isabelle de Charrière is clearly one of those. Some years ago already, we decided that her correspondence (available in paper form thanks to the Van Oorschot edition 1979-1984) should be made available online. And now indeed, a project using the Huygens ING application called eLaborate, is dedicated to this digitizing. It is done with the help of a small group of interested non-specialists who are members of the Dutch Isabelle de Charrière Association. They practice what we call “crowdsourcing”.
But we must not exclude that some human attention might be given also to (seemingly) less exceptional authors, for whom – thanks to our collective research – we have discovered their playing a role in the literary field of their time. Those eight women authors who were presented to HOVO students earlier this year, clearly attracted their interest, and we now think about the possibility of inviting these non-specialists for collaborating in another “crowdsourcing” enterprise: suggesting that they might read – as “test readers” – those texts we “discover” and consider important for historical reasons. Are they also interesting, or even fascinating, or just intriguing for modern readers?
This would be not unlike what happens in Huygens ING project that started last year and is entitled “The Riddle of Literary Quality”, where present-day readers are invited to comment upon their reading of present-day popular literature. Our “test readers” would evaluate 19th-century female, at the time very popular texts, and in doing so would give an impression of the possibility, for some of these women, to reach a larger audience even in this 21st century – perhaps firstly a women’s audience, for whom it can be important to realize that history can be rewritten…
This idea will be further developed and discussed, as being in fact one of the final objectives of research like the one we are carrying out.
SvD, 29 May 2013
- Conferences and activities > COST meetings > Final COST-WWIH conference June 2013 > 9.20