Author: Bee Lehman
A&H Data: What even is data in the Arts & Humanities?
This is the first of a multi-part series exploring the idea and use of data in the Arts & Humanities. For more information, check out the UC Berkeley Library’s Data and Digital Scholarship page.
Arts & Humanities researchers work with data constantly. But, what is it?
Part of the trick in talking about “data” in regards to the humanities is that we are already working with it. The books and letters (including the one below) one reads are data, as are the pictures we look at and the videos we watch. In short, arts and humanities researchers are already analyzing data for the essays, articles, and books that they write. Furthermore, the resulting scholarship is data.
For example, the letter below from Bancroft Library’s 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire Digital Collection on Calisphere is data.
George Cooper Pardee, “Aid for San Francisco: Letter from the Mayor in Oregon,”
April 24, 1906, UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library on Calisphere.
One ends up with the question “what isn’t data?”
The broad nature of what “data” is means that instead of asking if something is data, it can be more useful to think about what kind of data one is working with. After all, scholars work with geographic information; metadata (e.g., data about data); publishing statistics; and photographs differently.
Another helpful question is to consider how structured it is. In particular, you should pay attention to whether the data is:
- unstructured
- semi-structured
- structured
The level of structure informs us how to treat the data before we analyze it. If, for example, you have hundreds of of images, you want to work with, it’s likely you’ll have to do significant amount of work before you can analyze your data because most photographs are unstructured.
For example, with this picture of a ceramic hedgehog, the adorable animal, the photograph, and the metadata for the photograph are all different kinds of data. Image: Zde, Ceramic Rhyton in the Form of a Hedgehog, 14. to 13. century BCE, Photograph, March 15, 2014, Wikimedia Commons. | Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.
In contrast, the letter toward the top of this post is semi-structured. It is laid out in a typical, physical letter style with information about who, where, when, and what was involved. Each piece of information, in turn, is placed in standardized locations for easy consumption and analysis. Still, to work with the letter and its fellows online, one would likely want to create a structured counterpart.
Finally, structured data is usually highly organized and, when online, often in machine-readable chart form. Here, for example, are two pages from the Polk San Francisco City Directory from 1955-1956 with a screenshot of the machine-readable chart from a CSV (comma separated value) file below it. This data is clearly structured in both forms. One could argue that they must be as the entire point of a directory is for easy of information access and reading. The latter, however, is the one that we can use in different programs on our computers.
R.L. Polk & Co, Polk’s San Francisco City Directory, vol. 1955–1956 (San Francisco, Calif. : R.L. Polk & Co., 1955),Internet Archive. | Public Domain.
This post has provided a quick look at what data is for the Arts&Humanities.
The next will be looking at what we can do with machine-readable, structured data sets like the publisher’s information. Stay tuned! The post should be up in two weeks.
African Short Stories Prize Short List
This year’s short list for the Caine Prize for African Writing is rather phenomenal. Here’s the list with access to most of the stories full text:
- Tryphena Yeboah (Ghana) for ‘The Dishwashing Women’, Narrative Magazine (Fall 2022) – magazine website
- Nadia Davids (South Africa) for ‘Bridling’, The Georgia Review (2023) – magazine website
- Samuel Kolawole (Nigeria) for ‘Adjustment of Status’, New England Review, Vol. 44, #3 (Summer
2023) – pdf of story from Project Muse - Uche Okonkwo (Nigeria) for ‘Animals’, ZYZZYVA (2024) – magazine website
- Pemi Aguda (Nigeria) for ‘Breastmilk’, One Story, Issue #227 (2021) – excerpt on magazine website
The Judges–pictured below–have released a few statements about the submissions and a few of their thoughts on the range in the official press release.
As a head’s up, next is the Caine Prize 25th anniversary. There should be some exciting events!
Cheers,
Bee
Exciting new faculty pub on Heterosexuality and the American Sitcom
To my delight, I get to announce that Prof. Grace Lavery has a new book titled Closures: Heterosexuality and the American Sitcom (cover figured here).
At UC Berkeley, Lavery teaches courses (course catalog) on topics such as “Literature and Popular Culture” as well as special topics courses and research seminars examining representations of sex, sexuality, and gender.
Lavery’s new book is a phenomenal study looking at the idea of heterosexuality in the U.S. American sitcom. More specifically, the book “reconsiders the seven-decade history of the American sitcom to show how its reliance on crisis and resolution in each episode creates doubts and ambivalence that depicts heterosexuality as constantly on the verge of collapse and reconstitution.”
You can access and download the book online through the UC Library Search.
Register to Vote!
It’s an election year. If you haven’t registered to vote yet, there’s still time! In California, you need to be registered at least 15 days before Election Day (this year that’s Tuesday, November 5). You can click on the link to the right to register.
As a quick reminder, there are two criteria to register. First (legal status), you must be a United States citizen and a resident of California. Second (age), you must be 18 years old or older on Election Day. You do not need a California state identification to register.
Once you register, you will be able to either vote by mail or at the polls on election day. Click on the link to the right to find out more information or to watch a video about how the process works.
If you aren’t from this state, be aware that California residents vote on multiple propositions alongside United States president. You can request an Official Voter Information Guide from the State which will contain a short blurb with pros/cons on each item for consideration. You can also choose to take a look at what will (probably) be on the ballot on Ballotpedia. Those propositions will include things like Mental Health Services; the right to marry; involuntary servitude; and more.
If you’re wanting to learn more about voting as a right, consider looking at this ACLU Voting 101 Toolkit:
Speculative Fiction: Hugo Award Winners in 2024!
To my delight, the Hugo winners have been announced. Check out the full list of categories, short lists, and winners on the Hugo Awards website. On my side, I’ve read the short stories (i.e., less than 7,500 words) and now am making my way through the novelettes (i.e., 7,500 to 17,500 words). I am enjoying myself immensely.
This year’s novel (i.e., 40,000 words or more) winner is Emily Tesh’s 2023 Some Desperate Glory (Tor Books pub., UC Library Book Search).
T. Kingfisher’s 2023 A Fairy Tale Transformed: Thornhedge (Tor, Titan UK pub., UC Library Search) won the prize for novella (i.e., 17,500-40,000 words).
In novelettes, we’ve got Naomi Kritzer’s “The Year Without Sunshine” (Uncanny Magazine, November-December 2023, fulltext).
In short stories, there is Naomi Kritzer’s “Better Living Through Algorithms” (Clarkesworld, May 2023, fulltext).
In graphic novels, we’ve got the 11th volume of SAGA by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Fiona Staples (Image, pub., UC Library Search).
Then, in games or interactive works, Baldur’s Gate 3 (Larian Studios, prod., website).
There is more, but this post is long enough. I encourage you to check out the full list linked at the top. And, If you have time, I hope you enjoy.
Signing off,
Bee (Lit/DH Librarian)
Prof. Elizabeth Abel Talks Odd Affinities and Virginia Woolf
Mrs. Dalloway’s Literary and Garden Arts (website) got there first, nonetheless I’m thrilled to share the news that Prof. Elizabeth Abel released Odd Affinities : Virginia Woolf’s Shadow Genealogies with the University of Chicago Press this year.
Prof. Abel (faculty page) teaches with the UC Berkeley English Department. They teach courses on Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group as well as broader overviews of 19th and 20th century English literatures. This fall, they are leading courses “Memoir and Memory” as well as on graduate readings and special study.
In Odd Affinities, Prof. Abel discusses Woolf’s influence beyond a female tradition, looking at echoes of Woolf work in four major writers from diverse cultural contexts: Nella Larsen, James Baldwin, Roland Barthes, and W. G. Sebald. Looking at those “odd affinities,” Abel looks at how “Woolf’s career and the transnational modernist genealogy was constituted by her elusive and shifting presence.”
You can access Abel’s book through the UC Library Search, where you can access it online and download the fulltext.
Booker Prize Longlist!
To my delight, the Booker Prize longlist has been announced! I’m rather looking forward to a couple long weekends reading through these.
For the list, I’ve gone ahead and included the Booker Prizes’ official links for title and authors as well then a UC Search or Berkeley Public Library link in the parenthesis.
- Wild Houses by Colin Barrett (UC Search)
- Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel (UC Search)
- James by Percival Everett (Berkeley Public Library)
- Orbital by Samantha Harvey (UC Search)
- Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner (Berkeley Public Library)
- My Friends by Hisham Matar (UC Search)
- This Strange Eventful History by Claire Messud (UC Search)
- Held by Anne Michaels (UC Search)
- Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange (UC Search)
- Enlightenment by Sarah Perry (UC Search)
- Playground by Richard Powers (UC Search)
- The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (UC Search)
- Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood (I’ll have to buy this one)
Keep in mind that you can request these books at the Oakland or San Francisco Public Libraries as well.
I hope we all enjoy!