How does philological practice change in the digital age? How can the potential of information technology be applied to the study of literary texts? What is the role played by large text databases in literary criticism and how can they be effectively interrogated?

Presentation

The meeting is part of the cycle of events “New horizons. How to renew the humanities” (HFC-HOR 2020) organised by the Humanities for Change network, promoted by the Venice Centre for Digital and Public Humanities (VeDPH) and financed with funds for student activities of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. The event will be held in Italian.

Articulation and content

The transition from paper text to electronic text is bringing about a revolution no less epochal than the one that sanctioned, at the dawn of the 16th century, the transition from the manuscript to the printed book civilization. Digital textuality, in fact, is turning some of the paradigms of the printing age, starting from the diffusion of liquid canons and volatile texts against the fixity and stability of the inked page. But it is also slowly redefining the methodologies of humanistic research in the field of literary criticism and ecdotic practice, introducing new electronic tools to support scholars.

The aim of the seminar is to provide some methodological advice on the use of information technology for the exegesis and philology of texts. How should the relationship between philology and information technology be developed? How to make digital tools a "means" and not the ultimate "goal" of humanistic research?

During the first meeting (Thursday, December 10, 2020, 2.00 PM CET) some large databases of literary texts will be presented, such as the Letteratura Italiana Zanichelli (LIZ) and, in the classical field, the Latin poetry database Musisque Deoque (MQDQ). Starting from the conception of technology as a heuristic means capable of detecting certain aspects and phenomena of textuality that the eye and memory would not be able to grasp (lexical and metric-verbal occurrences first of all), the aim of information technology applied to literary texts will be identified in the restitution of information that, due to its complexity, goes beyond individual acquisition capabilities. Finally, we will stress the provisional nature of the data found, which require the scholar's interpretation and their inclusion in an argumentative framework that accounts for historical and linguistic reasons.

The second meeting (Friday, 11 December 2020, 10.00 AM CET) will review some of the potential of literary text databases in relation to literary attributions, highlighting how the querying of databases makes it possible to conduct stylistic expertise and other advanced research (also at the phonic level) to try to clarify some of the authorial's doubts or, more generally, to ascertain the degree of adherence of a text to a given genre. The methodological principles of attributive philology will be accompanied by the timely presentation of some case studies, which will be selected especially among those discussed in P. Stoppelli, L’equivoco del nome. Rime incerte fra Dante Alighieri e Dante da Maiano, Roma, Salerno Editrice, 2020.

Programme

Tuesday November 10, 2020

History goes digital: challenges and opportunities

Webinar

• Deborah Paci (Venice Centre for Digital and Public Humanities),
• Dorit Raines (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice),
• Tiago Luís Gil (Universidade de Brasília),
• Francesco Maccelli (University of Florence and Trieste)

Tuesday November 24, 2020

In the name of Dante. Representing the Comedy

Interview

• Marco Martinelli (theatre director),
• Eugenio Burgio (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice)

Thursday, December 10 and 11, 2020

2 PM CET (first part)

10 AM CET (second part)

During the meeting will be presented the new book by P. Stoppelli, L'equivoco del nome. Rime incerte fra Dante Alighieri e Dante da Maiano, Roma, Salerno Editrice, 2020.

Speakers

• Pasquale Stoppelli, Former Professor of Philology of Italian Literature at “La Sapienza” University of Rome, has dealt with attributive philology and digital analysis of literary texts. On the first side there are some important contributions on Machiavelli and Dante (including Machiavelli e la novella di Belfagor. Saggio di filologia attributiva, Roma, Salerno Editrice, 2007 and Dante e la paternità del “Fiore”, Roma, Salerno Editrice, 2011), while for the second strand we recall the LIZ (Letteratura Italiana Zanichelli) database on CD edited together with Eugenio Picchi (Bologna, Zanichelli, 2001).
• Paolo Mastandrea is Full Professor at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, where he teaches Latin language and literature. In addition to dealing with Latin poetic language from the origins to the 19th and 20th century in the Italian area, he has studied the use of computer applications to literary texts by editing various electronic repertories of literary works (in Latin and beyond), including Musisque Deoque (PRIN 2005-2007), Poeti d’Italia in lingua latina (PRIN 1999-2001) e Memorata Poetis (PRIN 2010-2011).

The meeting will be moderated by Marco Sartor (University of Parma) and Irene Mamprin.

Participation

The event is broadcast in live streaming on the Zoom platform:

• link d'accesso: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/73818903072?pwd=TnhsSG1PanVKQkZ3ckFVckxuN3QxUT09
• meeting ID: 738 1890 3072
• passcode: HFC-HOR

We recommend a free ticket booking on Eventbrite (which involves reserving a seat in the virtual room) at the link: http://hfc-hor3.eventbrite.com. During the seminar it will be possible to intervene live by activating microphone and webcam.

At the end of the event, audience is asked to fill in the satisfaction questionnaire available at: https://it.surveymonkey.com/r/Y96BX7X.