Author: Mauricio Martínez

Mauricio Enrique Martínez is a student who is majoring in Cultural Anthropology and Japanese at Bucknell University. A wanderer in life.

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Blog #2

Blog post #2

For the Moravian memoirs the use of the Voyant Tools helps understand more of the idea or the theme of a particular text more easily in one website. In analyzing the text that was given my group has come up with a research question, “How did Esther Latrobe’s relationship with God affect her lifestyle, and help her recover from such illnesses and hardships? ”  There is also a question that I propose and it is, ” Would her values of life be any different if she was put into this time period?” These tools may help us find the answer we need.   However, as Whitley points out “visualizations are intended neither to stand as definitive interpretations of literary text nor to provide direct answers to research question.”(187) 

When looking at the tools that are given it seem that these tools would help us understand more on these research questions. The reason is that many of the traditional tools are usually pen and paper that has only one copy of existence. But in the Digital age that we live, a person is able to access things more quicker and understand the connections of the terms and their usage in that text better and faster. We are able to compare and contrast between text better in finding the differences and “digital technology  (help us) search for patterns and trace broad outlines.” (188)

While using the Voyant tool it has showed the connections of the theme that was around the terms that were commonly used. The key terms that were most frequent in the letters were the Samuel text was lord, time, heart and death. These terms came from the other group that we shared with. By using the cirrus tool it allowed us to visualize the top frequent words in a word cloud. That shows a pattern of religion being the main center of it all. In the Latrobes letters it was about a women who has lived life of misery and sickness in her life, yet having a positive attitude towards her life and to others. Knowing that one day her God will give her a better life after death. With the cirrus tool and mandala tool it allowed me to distinguish the key terms of the Letters in a bigger picture. With key terms being lord, saviuor, dear, god and heart it conveys that most of these texts convey a message that a person life revolves on the teachings of Christianity and what keeps that person living as a good person. There are collocates in this text like, “Dear Saviour let me take my soul at the foot of thy cross,for ever having my eyes fixed on thy sacred body, bearing my sins’ heavy load.”(pg 6) with the Dear and Saviour being next to each other. For example, with the tool of Corpus Collocates it describes  the patterns and amount of times that terms collocate with each other. Being that the most collocate terms that go together are Dear, Saviour and Death. Even though Death is not much of a prevalent word in the Latrobe article. It did have a prevalent theme around it while also giving the same prevalent theme of religion being the main factor of her life. With the Lord being the most frequent term for both text, it describes her wanting advise from God to help her find peace in her life and those around her. One thing to note is that in this letter is that it had more of a emotional story of a person than describing the whole environment.  

In the end, the key terms and the patterns that were shown by the tools give us an understanding of their world and life. It lets us see the prevalent themes of the past that may be common for them, but uncommon for us. As  Whitley would explain it, “visualizations help us perceive patterns in data that we might otherwise miss” (187) in order understand the stories of our past.

 

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Assignment #1

Assignment #1

The process of the digital text creation was based upon sound of the word for the most part. Being that English is not my first language and not being able to learning it properly, especially cursive old English. I had to ask for help from my teammates around me or my professors that were there to help. The process of this assignment was to understand how to transcribe the feelings and the meaning of the people of the past to this modern age, so people can have access to this transcribe.

With the connection of the documents I had was pretty slim to none because I have never heard of the Moravian lives till I enrolled into this class. However, I was surprised by the fact that these letters had much more meaning to it than I imagine. When doing the section that I was assigned to do there wasn’t many people, dates and etc. ,but there were a lot of traits or characteristics that describe the situation of the event or a person. It captivated me in seeing how these people from the past were able put emotions into the paper with different metaphors in a weird way that captivated me. While doing this assignment it taught me how to be more openly aware that I am not going get it on the first try when transcribing a document because sometimes a document can be blurry or really hard to read.

To get a precise digital text I had to re-read the pages that I was assigned. The reason for it is to see if there were any errors in spelling and to see if the a line makes sense to the whole story. Also, just talking to ones own group members to see their perspective in this matter is a huge advantage to see if this correct.

Link to google docs: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JskmdGh4grdhqHksXQmYSCRA0D3VlchO1ceAMjTDobo/edit?ts=5b8ec2ae

Link to Moravian lives: http://moravian.bucknell.edu/scripto/?scripto_action=transcribe&scripto_doc_id=300031&scripto_doc_page_id=4000490

Pg numbers 35-40

Categories
Blog #1

Blog #1

In the Research Projects that were looked at like the, “Database of Indigenous People in North America,” had many interacting material that are displayed in our screen with a click of our mouse. With the new interactions of these archives conveys that our research practices are changing in order to be more visually pleasing to people and be more accessible to the public. In the Research Projects, the primary Digital Humanities focus was Archive in the site itself. With Archiving it allows people to see documents, letters and other images that can be easily accessed in the site, than having someone go to specific place just to see the physical copy once. However, there are disadvantages to that.

There are disadvantages when analyzing things in digital form because there is significance when looking at the object in first hand. It can show if the object is truly of significance or not to a specific area. No one can truly understand meaning of a place unless one goes to that specific place and talk to the people of that area or walk around that area in order to imagine how a person will live in this place.

With looking at the Research Projects in Archive it has its clear advantages with having more approaches to this like Maps. Maps help in looking at mapping areas that have impacted by events in American History, Southeast Asia, and many more. In the archive of  “Database of Indigenous People in North America” it give examples of some of them having named locations where Natives of the Land use to settle and the territory that was assigned to them by the American Government. With the methods that were presented in this specific Research Project  it can fit into a scholarly subject matter in understanding the History of the Indigenous people in a certain place and time. With having the perspectives of many people coming from newspapers, photographs, census and etc. it allows the average person connect the ideas of the past for them understand the actions of those people in the past. The determining factor that makes the digital representation to be conveyed to world is by the type material that is given and the amount information one has in their disposal to explain a subject matter. One has to determine in what ways can we share this information to a audience. Some people would just publish it into a book that can only be read in a physical copy. Or there are people who rather share to a public domain that is online to capture a larger audience. Another example can be an audio recording that was captured of very important event. One of the many ways people will be allowed to hear it is by either going to the object itself and get the permission to hear it, or having a copy online that can be easily accessed by one click.

The physical and emotional relationships to our objects of study are shifting in a digital age that can’t be stop. The reason is that is for efficiency. Lets say someone has found a huge discovery that can impact our world and the way to share it quickly is by using online tools that can be presented to a huge audience and can be analysed by other researches around the world. In a matter of time.

Digitized materials enhance the necessity of and desire for archival work because the physical location where that material came from can help us understand the meaning of that piece because a picture of a place can’t supplement the meaning of a place.

      

 

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Uncategorized

Practice Post from Tuesday

In the project that I choose was the “Database of Indigenous People in North America.” In the project, the primary Digital Humanities focus was Archive in the site itself. With Archiving it allows people to see documents, letters and other images that can be easily accessed in then site, than having someone go to specific place just to see the physical copy once. With looking over it there it has a secondary approach to this in mapping areas that have impacted by events in American History. Some of them having named locations where Natives of the Land use to settle and the territory that was assigned to them by the American Government. With the methods that were presented in this project  it can fit into a scholarly subject matter in understanding the History of the Indigenous people in a certain place and time. With having the perspectives of many people coming from newspapers, photographs, census and etc. it allows the average person connect the ideas of the past for them understand the actions of those people in the past. The determining factor that makes the digital representation to conveyed to world is by the type material that is given and the amount information one has in their disposal to explain a subject matter. One has to determine in what ways can we share this information to a audience. Some people would just publish it into a book that can only be read in a physical copy. Or there are people who rather share to a public domain that is online to capture a larger audience. Another example can be an audio recording that was captured of very important event. The ways people allow it to be heard is either going to the object and get the permission to hear it, or having a copy online that can be easily accessed by one click.