Online Resources for the Humanities: Interdisciplinary Perspectives.
International Seminar May 7-8, 2004

ABSTRACT: Griseldaonline, An Experiment and a Project.

Because of its continually amplified, nebulous anarchy of information, navigation in the Web universe is disorienting. Griseldaonline is a multimedia journal of Italian literature that wnats to propose, within the context of W3C standards, new models of textuality in the digital environment. Officially published every semester, but with periodical updates, the journal offers materials and discussions on three levels, which interact within a harmonious, interactive construct:

Griselda's journeys (articles, essays, scientific contributions),
Pedagogy and training (dedicated to the teaching of Italian literature),
humanities computing (for the study of multimedia technologies as applied to literary study).
Griseldaonline offers all its readers a vast and organic selection of information and services, accessible through Web links that connect the various resources within an easy-to-navigate hypertextual environment built with usability in mind. The objectives of this tool, which can be defined as a literature portal (or "vortal") are: to offer original articles by the authorities in the field; to offer a deeper understanding of the topics and theoretical problems of literary study; to supply students and teachers with didactical tools and suggestions; and to bring together literary researchers and new technologies useful in the humanities.

The special attention given to the semantic dimension attests to our awareness that the mere existence of materials on the Web cannot guarantee their quality, cannot be considered the "certifying" element. The Web must instead establish itself as a place for distribution of the results of scientific research that reflects upon traditional instruments from the perspective of innovation, integration and reorganization.

The section Griselda's Journeys proposes to investigate literature through the themes and topoi that delimit some "extreme," relevant, defining literary speces. Each semester's work, in fact, concerns only one topic, through contributions by internationally renowned researchers. We construct hypertextual navigation environments and iconographic paths. This section houses two sub-sections: one containing deeper examination ("Microscopies"), the other unedited narrative material ("Readings"). Through the "Intersections" page, it is possible to navigate the lemmatic index, which is continually supplemented with new contents, products of the ongoing publications.

The section Training and Pedagogy offers educators a basic access to the humanistic-literary area, proposing new arguments for debate (in a forum) and didactic modules organized according to the topic chosen for the current issue. The objective is to work on employing new technologies for the teaching of literature by constructing new multimedia tools.

The section Humanities Computing is dedicated to the applications of computing to the work of the Italianist researcher. It contains essays, monographs and theoretical papers, as well as practical examples of computational analysis of literary texts. Critical hypertextual editions, digital images of manuscripts and principes, databases of classic works, automatic indexing and concordance systems, computational ecdotic elaborations are the most eloquent examples of the applications of computation to the literary text. Within our site, the problems of computational modelling are not only a discussion motivator and topic of debate, but also a springboard for the creation of digital objects. In this section readers may also find a manual titled Humanities Computing. Towards Application of Computational Practices to Literary Texts.

All contributions published in the portal are both open for online consultation and linked to their printable versions. Newsletters and mailing lists ensure continuous contact with the large number of subscribers, who periodically receive information and are kept up to date regarding new publications.

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Online Resources for the Humanities: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. International Seminar May 7-8, 2004

ABSTRACT: Griseldaonline, An Experiment and a Project.

Online Resources for the Humanities: Interdisciplinary Perspectives.
International Seminar May 7-8, 2004