Humanities and Information Technology



"Electronic hypertext, the latest extension of writing, raises many questions and problems about culture, power, and the individual, but is is no more (or less) natural than any other form of writing, which is the greatest as well as the most destructive of all technologies" ( George Landow, Hypertext, 1992)


As the internet is revolutionising all areas of commerce and communications, it also has major implications in the area of the humanities. Considerable research is being done which investigates changes in peoples' reading and perceptual patterns.

George Landow's study Hypertext proposes that hypertext realises what Barthes and other major literary theorists hailed as the truest form of literature - that which is most free from the controlling hand of the author. The omnipresent and all-knowing narrator is never matched in real life: so, they propose, literature which gives value to a central and controlling consciousness is exercising some form of ideological control or pretense.

'In S/Z, Roland Barthes describes an ideal textuality that precisely matches that which has come to be called computer hypertext - text composed of blocks of words (or images) linked electronically by multiple paths, chains, or trails in an open-ended, perpetually unfinished textuality described by the terms link, node, network, web , and path: 'In this ideal text,' says Barthes, 'the networks are many and interact, without any of them being able to surpass the rest; this text is a galaxy of signifiers, not a structure of signifieds; it has no beginning; it is reversible; we gain access to it by several entrances, none of which can be authoritatively declared to be the main one; the codes it mobilises extend , they are indeterminable. . . ; the systems of meaning can take over this absolutely plural text, but their number is never closed, based as it is on the infinity of language'(emphasis in the original). (Extract from , George Landow, Hopkins University Press,1992, p3) Hypertext allows such a level of interaction and decision by the reader that their integration into text is at its peak.

Since 1990, the CTI Centre for Textual Studies, based at the University of Oxford, has promoted the use of Information Technology in a range of subjects, which collectively and broadly can be defined as 'textual studies'. They support the use of computers in the teaching of literature (all languages), literary linguistics, theology, classics, philosophy, film and media studies, theatre, arts and drama.

On 10 October 1998, I attended a Conference hosted by The Open University, called HumanITies: Information Technology in the Arts and Humanities: Present Applications and Future Perspectives. A wide variety of papers were given on various projects running in this area. To mention a few:

    (i) The JSTOR scheme - a scheme which is facilitating electronic access to core scholarly journals. Over 2 million pages have been put into the collection of older journal material - some of which were first published in the 1880s.

    (ii) Case studies of various tools - Electronic Workshops, Interactive Photo CDs, Electronic Tutoring, etc.

    (iii) One interesting paper dealt with an initiative in computer mediated communication and the teaching of English Literature. Participants included pupils from 2 comprehensive schools, teachers, and members of a University Department of Education. One aim of the project is to pair boys from each of the two schools (from geographically and socially diverse backgrounds) as email partners and to see whether, by encouraging them to share their responses to the novel under study (Animal Farm), it is possible to improve their reading skills and to enhance their enjoyment of literature. Email, the project leaders pointed out, can be a comparatively anonymous form of communication in that its messages come free of such personal markers as accent, handwriting or status: this presents exciting possibilities for teachers of literature.

    (iv) One of the most stimulating papers was that given by one of the leading academics in the area - Willard McCarty. of the Centre For Computing in the Humanities. Willard argues that in recent years computing has become essential to carrying out most if not all the mechanical tasks of scholarship. Leading scholars are arguing that the intellectual consequences of applying the computer to research in the humanities are changing the sociology of knowledge. Some have speculated and even begun to demonstrate that computing alters what we regard as knowledge and both through its powers and limitations brings new questions to light. Go to the paper given at the conference, Poem and Algorithm: Humanities Computing in the life and place of the mind. Another interesting paper which defines Humanities Computing: What is Humanities Computing?





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