Joris van Eijnatten: Conceptual Change over Time: From Simple Counts to Complex Models?

Thursday 18/10/2018 at 15:00 in room B1.09

Our next meeting, on the 18^th of October. For the first time an expert from the digital humanities will come present. Cultural historian Joris van Eijnatten will give an talk on the “Conceptual Change over Time: From Simple Counts to Complex Models” 

Abstract

At this stage of digital humanities research, the greatest challenge for historians is to produce content while continuing to keep track of new developments in both computer science and linguistics. Since they unavoidably work with messy data outside an experimental setting, historians need continuously to

(a) reassess existing techniques while developing convincing use cases, and

(b) integrate computer-assisted research with traditional hermeneutics.

While the latter is now taken for granted, the former is often forgotten. Currently one of the most exciting developments in the humanities concerns the possibility of tracing conceptual change over time using digital techniques. In this presentation I explore some theoretical insights as well as three approaches to conceptual change, discussing techniques ranging from simple frequency counts to complex vectorization models.”