Routledge The Virtual Representation of the Past (Digital Research in the Arts and Humanities)

This unique book critically evaluates the virtual representation of the past through digital media. A distinguished team of leading experts in the field approach digital research in history and archaeology from contrasting viewpoints, including philosophical, methodological and technical. They illustrate the challenges involved in representing the past digitally by focusing on specific cases of a particular historical period, place or technical problem. Review 'In an age when the objects of scholarly analysis in the arts and humanities are rapidly moving from the physical world to the virtual realm, researchers from all disciplines need a better understanding of the possibilities and potential of computational theory and methods. The fascinating essays in 'The Virtual Representation of the Past' explore the cutting edge of new techniques enabled by the digital age - from data- and text-mining to search to spatial technology - while remaining firmly rooted in the humanistic tradition. The book is approachable and thought-provoking.' Daniel Cohen, George Mason University, USA 'This excellent volume, by established and younger scholars, offers a definitive overview of the current landscape from a multidisciplinary perspective. The transformative opportunities that technology has to offer humanities researchers are highlighted, together with the scale of the challenges in an age of where so little thought is given to interoperability and long-term issues such as sustainability.' Jane Ohlmeyer, Trinity College, Ireland '...plenty of food for thought for readers wishing to utilise technologies to analyse and represent meta-data visually....a valuable model worthy of emulation across other countries and professions.' Australian Academic & Research Libraries '...more than just a fascinating read about how historians and archaeologists are beginning to use digital technologies. It asks subtle questions about what happens to the past when it is represented digitally, about how digital technology can be used to reveal the layers of interpretation which have accumulated around surviving traces of past activity, and at the same time how it adds new layers of meaning which somehow must also be recognized and revealed...Librarians and archivists might well compare their own practices and values with those described here and think about the ways in which they are also creating virtual representations of the past.' The Electroni About the Author Mark Greengrass is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Sheffield, UK and Lorna Hughes is Professor of Digital Humanities, School of Advanced Study, University of London, UK