Humanities Scholarship in a Vast Universe: Modelling integrated scholarly opportunities between scales of digital information and meaning

Abstract

Imagine a Google Earth-like opportunity to move between the “street view” of a close reading environment through aerial views of the inferences, influences, and dynamic constructions that emerge from the routes that grow up around a text, to satellite views of larger, constellated fields of contextual data. What kinds of scholarship and scholarly communication would such an environment enable? How would the inclusion of mapping and terraforming tools (that parallel the functions demonstrated in a game like Minecraft, or within Outerra’s impressive planetary mapping demo and sandbox prototype) encourage further occupation and influence? The Modelling and Prototyping group at INKE (Implementing New Knowledge Environments) is working to engage with such possibility spaces in an effort to address these questions.