Space and Narrative in the Digital Humanities: A Research Network

与基于计算机的地图交互使得许多任务，比如从一个地方导航到另一个地方，对许多用户来说都大大简化了。然而，这些发展背后的技术依赖于能够精确地定位道路、建筑、路径和其他特征。人们日常活动的世界空间并不是唯一一种需要在计算机上表现出来的空间。例如，历史文献可以描述建筑物在哪里，或者事件发生在哪里。关于过去旅行的作品，可以帮助我们今天理解我们自己的环境，以及它是如何被人们感知和描述的方式塑造的，以及它是如何被塑造的。无论是通过文学创作，还是通过电影等媒体，在想象的世界中，旅行的叙述也很重要。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故事作为一种相互交流的方式。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。这项技术可用于处理大量信息，例如，这些信息可能来自历史文献或文学文本。这使学者们能够通过包括数据可视化在内的技术，在信息中找到模式。这些模式可以对数据的来源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）来使用基于计算机的地图进行数据研究。然而，如果我们只知道教堂在房子旁边，或者这条路穿过森林，或者洪水淹没了大部分城镇，我们能做些什么呢？这些例子都包含定性的空间关系：“next to”、“through”、“covered most of”。这类关系已经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，人类通常不会使用非常详细的空间信息。我们可能会说“把椅子移到窗户旁边”，而不必计算所涉及的确切距离和角度。处理位置时的这种灵活性非常类似于数字人文学科中处理无法在地图上精确定位的事件、对象、旅程等的需求。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达方式，而计算机科学在空间信息质量表征方面进行了广泛的研究。在此之前，这两个研究领域几乎没有相互作用。该网络汇集了历史、文学、考古学等人文学科领域的专家，以及人工智能、地理信息系统等计算机科学领域的专家。该网络将重点关注数字人文学科如何利用计算机科学中使用的定性空间关系的方法。两个讲习班将根据与会者专业领域的文件和其他资源探讨详细的案例研究。第三个研讨会将鼓励形成一个以数字人文学科空间信息为中心的跨学科社区。本次研讨会将报告案例研究的探索。它还将允许研究人员和向公众提供档案和其他历史记录的组织共同规划建立数字工具所需的工作，这些工具将帮助人们处理人文学科中定性的、隐喻的、模糊的、不确定的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 For example, historical documents can describe where buildings were, or where events happened.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 Ths technology may be used to process large amounts of information, which might come from historical documents or literary texts for example.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 .