Space and Narrative in the Digital Humanities: A Research Network

与基于计算机的地图交互使许多任务，如从一个地方导航到另一个地方，对许多用户来说大大简化了。然而，这些开发背后的技术依赖于能够以精确的方式定位道路、建筑、路径和其他特征。人们每天活动的世界空间并不是唯一一种重要的在计算机上表现的空间。例如，历史文件可以描述建筑物在哪里，或事件发生在哪里。关于过去旅行的写作，可以帮助我们今天了解我们自己的环境，以及它是如何被塑造的，并且仍然被它被感知和描述的方式所塑造。旅行的叙述在想象的世界中也很重要，无论是在文学上创造的，还是通过电影等媒体创造的。研究这样的旅程，以及文学中其他类型的想象空间，也有助于我们理解人们讲述故事作为彼此交流的方式。数字人文学科包括通过数字技术研究历史、文学和人类经验的许多其他方面。这项技术可以用来处理大量的信息，例如，这些信息可能来自历史文献或文学文本。这使学者能够通过包括数据可视化在内的技术在信息中找到模式。这些模式可能会对数据来源的世界产生新的问题或新的视角。数字人文学科已经成功地使用地理信息系统(GIS)来研究基于计算机的地图的数据。然而，如果我们只知道教堂就在房子旁边，或者小路穿过森林，或者洪水淹没了小镇的大部分，我们能做什么呢？这些例子都包括定性的空间关系：“毗邻”、“贯穿”、“覆盖大部分”。这种关系在计算机科学中得到了研究，因为尽管它们本身不能提供足够的信息来在地图上绘制事物，但它们可以用逻辑通过计算来表示。在计算机科学中研究定性空间表示(QSR)的一个动机是，人类通常不使用非常详细的空间信息。我们可以说“把椅子移到窗边”，而不必计算具体的距离和角度。这种处理位置的灵活性非常类似于数字人文领域处理无法在地图上精确定位的事件、对象、行程等的需求。因此，数字人文学科需要更灵活的基于计算机的空间信息表示方式，而计算机科学对QSR有着广泛的研究。在此之前，这两个研究领域几乎没有任何互动。这个网络汇集了历史、文学和考古等领域的人文专家，以及人工智能和地理信息系统等领域的计算机科学专家。该网络将重点关注数字人文学科如何适应计算机科学中定性空间关系的使用方式。两个讲习班将根据与会者专长领域的文件和其他资源，探讨详细的案例研究。第三期讲习班将鼓励形成一个以数字人文领域的空间信息为中心的跨学科社区。本研讨会将报告案例研究的探索情况。它还将允许研究人员和使档案和其他历史记录向公众开放的组织共同规划所需的工作，以建立数字工具，帮助人们处理人文学科中定性、隐喻、模糊、不确定或模棱两可的空间信息。

Interacting with computer-based maps has made many tasks, such as navigating from one place to another, significantly simpler for many users. The technology behind these developments, however, depends on being able to pin-point roads, buildings, paths, and other features in a precise way. The space of the world people move around in day by day is not the only kind of space which it is important to represent on computers. For example, historical documents can describe where buildings were, or where events happened. Writings about journeys made in the past, can help us today understand our own environment and how it was shaped and is still being shaped by the ways it has been perceived and described. Narratives of journeys are significant too in imagined worlds whether created in literature, or through media such as film. Studying such journeys, as well as other kinds of imagined spaces in literature, also helps us understand the ways in which people tell stories as a way of communicating with each other.The digital humanities includes the study of history, literature, and many other aspects of human experience, through digital technology. Ths technology may be used to process large amounts of information, which might come from historical documents or literary texts for example. This enables scholars to find patterns in the information, through techniques including visualisation of the data. These patterns can generate new questions or new perspectives on the world from which the data came. The digital humanities has successfully used Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for the study of data using computer-based maps. However, what can be done if all that we know is that the church is next to the house, or that the path went through the forest, or that the flood covered most of the town? These examples all include qualitative spatial relations: 'next to', 'through', 'covered most of'. These kinds of relations have been studied in computer science because, although they do not give enough information by themselves to plot things on a map, they can be represented computationally using logic. One motivation for the study of Qualitative Spatial Representation (QSR) in computer science is that humans often don't use very detailed spatial information. We might say ''move the chair next to the window'' instead of having to calculate the exact distances and angles involved. This kind of flexibility when dealing with locations is very similar to the need in the digital humanities to handle events, objects, journeys, and so on that cannot be pin-pointed on a map. Thus, the digital humanities needs more flexible computer-based ways of representing spatial information, and computer science has extensive research on QSR. These two areas of study have had almost no interaction before now. This network brings together experts from the humanities in areas including history, literature, and archaeology, with experts from computer science in areas including artificial intelligence and geographical information systems. The network will focus on how the digital humanities can use adaptations of the ways qualitative spatial relations are used in computer science. Two workshops will explore detailed case studies based on documents and other resources from the participants' areas of expertise. A third workshop will encourage the formation of a cross-disciplinary community centred on spatial information in the digital humanities. This workshop will report on the case study explorations. It will also allow researchers, and organisations who make archives and other historical records accessible to the public, to plan together the work needed to build digital tools that will help people handle spatial information in the humanities which is qualitative, metaphorical, vague, uncertain or ambiguous .