Välkommen till terminens första DH-seminarium!
Christian Mehrstam, litteraturvetare vid Institutionen för litteratur, idéhistoria och religion, Göteborgs universitet ger seminariet Fight the machine, fight the problem, fight the money: Programming Language History and Some Implications for Algorithmic Criticism". Seminariet är öppet för alla och kan följas via Zoom. För de som deltar på plats erbjuds ett enklare postseminarium.
ABSTRACT:
Can a historic perspective help when choosing a programming language for a digital humanities project? The affordances, practices and quirks of any language come from needs in its development contexts, which may or may not match those of the project. This seminar deals with three aspects of programming language history, dubbed "Fight the Machine", "Fight the Problem" and "Fight the Money." It starts with a historic overview and discusses languages from different eras, relating their qualities to the example activity of algorithmic criticism. This is the manipulation of a literary text by way of programming, in order to affect the scholar's hermeneutic process. It is a particular objective, uncommon in current software industry, and the most interesting qualities for it won't necessarily put a language at the top of popularity charts such as PYPL or the TIOBE Index.