93176 - Seminar on Digital Scholarly Edition

Learning outcomes

At the end of the seminar (an activity closely related to the objectives of the degree course) the student acquires specific skills and notions for dealing with linguistic and/or philological and/or literary and/or historical and/or artistic themes and problems. The seminar aims to provide basic tools for understanding the mechanisms for constructing a digital text (TEI-XML and HTML formats), knowledge of the systems currently available for writing and producing simple documents based on digital transcriptions of literary texts.

Course contents

The seminar will be led by Dr. Roberta Priore (roberta.priore2@unibo.it), whom interested students can contact for any information.

Given the seminar nature of the course, attendance is strongly recommended.

The workshop aims to provide basic tools for understanding the mechanisms of digital text production, focusing on standard markup languages for text encoding, especially XML/TEI, with attention to the various possible levels of markup, particularly the philological level.

The first part of the course will be dedicated to this latter aspect. Philological tools will provide a necessary foundation for delving into the analysis and construction of digital editions.

The state of the art in digital critical editions (Digital Scholarly Editions) will then be presented, reflecting on the ways in which literary texts are created, maintained, and accessed in a digital environment. This will include an analysis of the most prevalent editorial paradigms currently in use and the future prospects for digital textuality, with particular attention to philological and critical aspects.

The concept of digital edition versus digitization will be explored, exploring encoding and markup languages, with a specific focus on the XML standard and the TEI vocabulary.

Given the seminar nature of the course, the XML/TEI encoding of a literary or critical text will be explored through group exercises and independent work supervised by the tutor. Finally, students will be asked to independently design a simple theoretical encoding model, either complementary or alternative to the one presented in class.

TOPICS

- Philology of the Copy and Authorial Philology: An Overview; What do you look at when you look at a manuscript? How is a critical edition created? Differences between diplomatic editions and critical editions; authorial philology and genetic critique.

- The digital text, from text to hypertext, an overview of digital editions and archives, critical issues and potential of digital scholarly editions (questions of durability, sustainability, scientific validity, evaluation criteria)

- The concept of encoding, markup languages (HTML, SGML, XML), DTD, and XML schema

- The TEI vocabulary and the different possible encoding levels (with particular attention to the philological aspect)

- Designing an encoding model

Readings/Bibliography

READING LIST:

The exam will focus on the topics covered in class (all necessary materials for which will be provided on Virtuale, for the benefit of non-attending students) and on the assessment of the coding work completed.

Recommended readings:

P. Italia, Editing Duemila, Salerno, Roma, 2020.

T. Mancinelli-E. Pierazzo, Che cosa è l’edizione scientifica digitale, Carocci, Roma, 2019.

M. Zaccarello, Leggere senza libri, Cesati, Firenze, 2020.

T. Numerico, D. Fiormonte, F. Tomasi, L'umanista digitale, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2010. (Introduzione, capp. 2-3).

ONLINE RESOURCES:

TEI Guidelines http://www.tei-c.org/Guidelines/P5/, TEI by Examples (TEI tutorials and exercises)

https://teibyexample.org/TBE.htm

Teaching methods

Seminar lessons

Assessment methods

Oral exam to assess:

1 - knowledge and understanding of the topics covered during the course.

2 - XML/TEI file of the text encoded according to the scheme proposed during the lectures.

3 - Based on an independently developed encoding model, propose the marking of a text of the students' choice.

NB: Items 2 and 3 must be submitted in the same email at least 4 days before the exam date and will be discussed and evaluated during the oral exam.

Students with SLD or temporary or permanent disabilities. It is suggested that they get in touch as soon as possible with the relevant University office (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en ) and with the lecturer in order to seek together the most effective strategies for following the lessons and/or preparing for the examination.

Teaching tools

Materials available on Virtuale.

Digital tools presented during the course.

Link to further information:

https://tei-c.org/

Office hours

See the website of Eugenio Maggi