Hackathon webinar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vlf3uskUQAI
Dataset: http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/
The corpus has been digitized. St. Thomas Acquinas's work is like being an ant inside a cathedral.
This is not a traditional hackathon in this sense. Good ideas for the visual representation of data.
Old style computers -> smartphone, intuitivie easy to use.
Example:
http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/iopera.html http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/sth1002.html
Does God exist? ARTICULUS 3 [28315] Iª q. 2 a. 3 arg. 1 Ad tertium sic proceditur. Videtur quod Deus non sit. Quia si unum contrariorum fuerit infinitum, totaliter destruetur aliud. Sed hoc intelligitur in hoc nomine Deus, scilicet quod sit quoddam bonum infinitum. Si ergo Deus esset, nullum malum inveniretur. Invenitur autem malum in mundo. Ergo Deus non est.
Point, click, repeat. Slow navigation at the moment.
First consider the objections, then considers argument, then presents his own arguments. Very courteous way of debating, considering the opponents' point of view first.
Articles are organized by questions, those are organized into greater block.
Summa Theologiae, the greatest work, unfinished by the end of his life.
Get an idea of how his ideas are structured. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summa_Theologica)
The structure resembles a fractal, the deeper we go the more detail we see (scale and variance).
Link references together in the corpus.
Scholars to label, to change languages.
Make the data managable.
Credit Rox Arten: We are looking more strongly for the visual experience of the database.
Q: Do I need to know Latin? A: No. You can use any language, to learn the structure of the corpus.
Q: How to submit? A: How to get to detail without losing context. Happy to accept a short description with a sketch of ideas. As this is a visualization exercise, what matters is that you demo the concept. This can be a hand-drawn sketch, PhotoShop, coded animation, or anything else as long as you can demonstrate your idea.
- Private GitHub Classroom repository, to which you need to make a Pull Request to submit. Include in the Pull Request the following:
- Description of the idea, preferably with features, benefits, and resources needed to realize it. This should be in a REAME.md in GitHub Flavoured Markdown.
- A link to a max 2 minute unlisted YouTube video that runs the demo, you can use your computer to screen cast, or a phone. We are not looking for production value but instead a clear, concise demonstration. E.g. if you have hand drawn sketches, please animate the pieces of paper moving and so on. Keep it simple.
- IF you do have digital assets such as PhotoShop files, animations, or code, then include those as well.
Q: What prizes will be awarded? A: Small cash award. $1,000 for the Top Prize, and $250 each for the first runner up and second runner up. Reserve the right to not award prizes or to split or give more, depending on the quality and quantity of proposals.
Q: Where can we go from here? A: This is a very fundable project. There is a long term potential for a Call for Proposals. At the moment we are short of ideas.
Q: Is there any Digital Humanities work we can build on? A: What there is out there is not that creative, or easy to use. We would welcome some review of what exists, but many tools are under-developed.
Q: Credit: Christiane Harris: Would you like the works of other authors referenced by St. Thomas Acquinas to be included in our visualization? A: If possible, yes but the status of those other texts as Digital Humanities are very varied so this is an extension issue for later. For the basic idea make your own judgement.
Q: Credit: Christiane Harris: There are some works on the site that analyze or comment on St. Aquinas's works. Do we include these? A: Scholars have been commenting on his work for 750 years. This may be great in the long run but for the first go, let's do a little well is better than a lot done badly.
- WOW factor, the creativity.
- Ability to communicate the idea.
- Implementation, how difficult, possible is it
This is just intended to get you started, a list of abbreviations.
Structure of an article in the Summa Theologiae of St Thomas Aquinas – there are roughly 3,000 articles in total:
pr. — prologue to a question [does not always appear]
arg. — objections
s. c. — “On the contrary”
co. — “I respond that”
ad. — replies to objections
The Priest and the Punchcard - book coming out about this corpus, which was the very first Digital Humanities project in 1946 (!) before computers were even mainstream. IBM invested in this project for 30 years, Thomas Watson took an interest in this himself.
The Pull Request must be sent before the end of October 14, 2018, British Time. (23:59 pm, just before midnight. See how generous? ;) )