The Reified Text Resource and the Quest to Network the Medieval Scholastic Corpus

Jeffrey C. Witt (Loyola University Maryland) | @jeffreycwitt

University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, November 23, 2019

Slide Deck: http://jeffreycwitt.com/slides/2019-11-23-penn-reified-text

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

The Challenge of Appreciating the Scholastic Tradition

1) The scholastic tradition is ESSENTIALLY a commentary tradition.

2) Fully understanding a passage requires situating it within a series of interconnected networks.

3) The print medium does not easily capture or visualize these interrelations.

4) The digital medium offers us new possibilities, but no guarantees.

### Outline 1. Methodological Prologue 1. Examples Networks * A. The Generative History Network * B. The Text Interaction Network

### Methodological Prologue

### Types of Data in Library Catalogues

### Types of Data in Text Editions

### Instead of Repeating an Old Paradigm (Derived from an Old Medium) in a New Medium --- ### We Need to Shift to a New Paradigm that Suits the New Medium

SHIFTING FROM: 1. Observation and Reporting

TO: 2. Creation of Self-Reporting Data

Some Problems with the Observation and Reporting Method

1. Needless Redundancy

2. Lack of Transparency

### The Power of Self-Reporting Data #### Reifying Data into Curatable Resources

### A. Tracing the Generative History Network

section 1
- paragraph 1
  - 1 text text text
  - 2 text text text
  - 3 text text text
  - 4 text text text
- paragraph 1
  - 1 text text text
  - 2 text text text
  - 3 text text text
  - 4 text text text

### Using the Generative History Network

### On-Demand Citations

### On-Demand Text Comparisons

### On-Demand Image Comparisons

### B. Tracing the Text Interaction Network

### Example

### Using the Text Interaction Netowrk

### Combining the Generative History Network and the Text Interaction Network

### Conclusion

### Questions