Presentation of Prof. Willard McCarty (King's College, London) for THATCamp Switzerland, Lausanne, 11-12 November 2011

1. Mimesis to poiesis in
the digital humanities !
Willard McCarty!
Department of Digital Humanities !
King’s College London!
www.mccarty.org.uk/!

2. ca 1950-1995!
in academic !
departments!
by computing
centres, libraries &
other non-
academic units!
from work!
done in!
& commercial development
!"

3. The result:!
many good
things, but on the
whole little
advance on
mimetic
mechanisation of
the codex –
hence by analogy
with the
mechanisation of
music, !
the knowledge
jukebox.!
#"

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5. Andrew Webster, “Computers: The New
Age of Miracles”, Toronto Globe and
Mail, 16 November 1965!
Little conceptual
advance in ca 40
years!
Tim Berners-Lee, James
Hendler and Ora Lassila,
“The Semantic Web”,
Scientific American, May
2001 !
%"

6. ca 1995-2005!
Formation of a discipline centred on methods: the digital humanities as
keepers of a “methodological commons”. But how is this of the
humanities?!
&"

7. Difficult questions & tentative answers!
• What are we trying to do?"
!
– Simply to be useful to the older disciplines? Become the perfect servant, and so be without a life of our own?"
!
– Found a new discipline on the basis of a methodology which provides cogent explanations of phenomena
that cannot be obtained by any other means? Thus Latour’s moral quandry (in “The Politics of
Explanation”):"
!
• “If the work of explaining something is that of empire-building, should we explain something?.... Do we
want to add yet another discipline and profession to the many that we study?.... Do we lust for power
and recognition?....”!
• This lust is wrong because it distracts. Explanation and its concrete instantiation in
methods are not a desirable goals because they divert us from that which we study.
They become things in themselves, distancing us from that which give them meaning.
Computational methodology is a house built on sand."
!
• Again Latour: replace methodology by style (by playing a role rather than following a
rule).!
'"

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Apart from theories and imperatives, what actually do we find going on in
this space of the digital humanities?!
("

9. Publishing!
Simulating! Modelling!
Computing in the humanities!
)"

10. Actions,
Publishing! not things!
Simulating! Modelling!
Computing in the humanities!
*+"

11. Publishing!
Simulating! Modelling!
of!
for!
Computing in the humanities!
**"

12. Basics: modelling!
modelling of!
residue!
Cantwell
Smith 1985.!
modelling for!
*!"

13. Simulating! Modelling!
is! of!
Mimetic!
Creative!
might be! for!
Computing in the humanities!
*#"

14. Basics: simulatingA
simulated
city!
New,
unpredictable
?!
behaviours!
real city!
*$"

15. • Jerry Fodor: “no computation without
representation” (Language of
Thought, 1975)."
!
• I suggest: “No computing (in the
humanities) without experimenting
and comparing”.!
*%"

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17. Publishing!
Simulating! Modelling!
Computing in the humanities!
*'"

18. Like a thief in the night!
• Joseph Weizenbaum: “…the direct societal effects of any
pervasive new technology are as nothing compared to its
much more subtle and ultimately more important side
effects” (“On the Impact of the Computer on Society”,
1972)."
!
• What, for us now, are these?"
!
– Wide & interdisciplinary rather than deep & specialist;!
– Argumentative rather than evidential;!
– Probabilistic rather than determined;!
– Conjecturally scientific – when it suits the research;!
– and…!
*("

19. Charlie Chaplin, Modern Times, 1936!
Trade Union !
Congress, !
1936!
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21. McCulloch-Pitts
model of the
brain, based on
the Turing
Machine,
1943-48!
Commercial
communications
interface
between Judy Trogadis & John
neuronal cells K. Stevens, promotionl
and silicon- microphotograph of a
based electronic human brain cell
devices, the growing on a Motorola
Golden Brain 68000 chip, 1984.!
project,
November 2004. !