Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-21T21:30:08.909Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 6 - You’re Already a Digital Humanist:

Why Aren’t You Thinking Like One?

from Part II - Doing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2024

Tracy C. Davis
Affiliation:
Northwestern University, Illinois
Paul Rae
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne
Get access

Summary

This chapter introduces data-driven research methods for theatre and performance. Drawing on two case studies, the chapter demonstrates how to define and identify data, how to collect and organize it, and how to analyse it through computational methods. Careful attention is paid to the tension between a rigorous data model and the uncertainty and ‘messiness’ present in data’s sources. The conclusion promotes data-driven thinking as a way to expand the context and scope of TaPS analyses and to encourage explicit reflection on the mental categories and models within which we understand performance.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allington, D., Brouillette, S., & Golumbia, D. (2016). ‘Neoliberal Tools (and Archives): A Political History of Digital Humanities’. Los Angeles Review of Books, 1 May.Google Scholar
Arnold, T., & Tilton, L. (2015). Humanities Data in R: Exploring Networks, Geospatial Data, Images, and Text. Cham: Springer International.Google Scholar
Bay-Cheng, S., Parker-Starbuck, J., & Saltz, D. Z. (2015). Performance and Media: Taxonomies for a Changing Field. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Bench, H., & Elswit, K. (2022). ‘Visceral Data for Dance Histories: Katherine Dunham’s People, Places, and Pieces’. TDR: The Drama Review, 66(1), 3761.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloom, G., Kemp, S., Toothman, N., & Buswell, E. (2016). ‘“A Whole Theatre of Others”: Amateur Acting and Immersive Spectatorship in the Digital Shakespeare Game Play the Knave’. Shakespeare Quarterly, 67(4), 408–30.Google Scholar
Bollen, J. (2016). ‘Data Models for Theatre Research: People, Places, and Performance’. Theatre Journal, 68(4), 615–32.Google Scholar
Bowker, G. C., & Star, S. L. (1999). Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Broadway League. (n.d.). ‘Internet Broadway Database’. Accessed 25 February 2023. www.ibdb.com.Google Scholar
Brown, L., & O’Connor, J., eds. (1978). Free, Adult, Uncensored: The Living History of the Federal Theatre Project. Washington, DC: New Republic Books.Google Scholar
Cahn, J., & Leighton, R. V. (1913). The Cahn–Leighton Official Theatrical Guide, vol. 17. New York: New Amsterdam Theatre Building.Google Scholar
D’Ignazio, C., & Klein, L. (2020). Data Feminism. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
De Hart, J. (1967). The Federal Theatre, 1935–1939: Plays, Relief, and Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Escobar Varela, M. (2021). Theatre as Data: Computational Journeys into Theatre Research. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Escobar Varela, M., & Hernández-Barraza, L. (2020). ‘Digital Dance Scholarship: Biomechanics and Culturally Situated Dance Analysis’. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, 35(1), 160–75.Google Scholar
Escobar Varela, M., & Miller, D. (2002). ‘Rethinking the Canon through the Digital’. In Mantoan, L., Moore, M., & Farr Schiller, A., eds., Troubling Traditions: Canonicity, Theatre, and Performance in the US. New York: Routledge, pp. 245–56.Google Scholar
Folger Shakespeare Library. (n.d.). ‘Shakespeare’s Works’. Accessed 25 February 2023. https://shakespeare.folger.edu.Google Scholar
Fraden, R. (1994). Blueprints for a Black Federal Theatre, 1935–1939. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gitelman, L., ed. (2013). ‘Raw’ Data Is an Oxymoron. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Graban, T. S., Marty, P., Romano, A., & Vandegrift, M., eds. (2019). ‘Invisible Work in Digital Humanities’. Special issue, DHQ: Digital Humanities Quarterly, 13(2).Google Scholar
Guyot, S., & Ravel, J. S., eds. (2020). Databases, Revenues, and Repertory: The French Stage Online, 1680–1793. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Herbert, I. (1986). ‘Computer Databases for Theatre Studies’. New Theatre Quarterly, 2(6), 175–80.Google Scholar
Jockers, M. (2014). Text Analysis with R for Students of Literature. Cham: Springer International.Google Scholar
Laurel, B. (1991). Computers as Theatre. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
LOC (Library of Congress). (n.d.). ‘Collection: Federal Theatre Project, 1935 to 1939’. Accessed 25 February 2023. www.loc.gov/collections/federal-theatre-project-1935-to-1939/.Google Scholar
Losh, E., & Wernimont, J. (2019). Bodies of Information: Intersectional Feminism and the Digital Humanities. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
McCarty, W. (2014). Humanities Computing. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Miller, D. (2016). ‘Average Broadway’. Theatre Journal, 68(4), 529–53.Google Scholar
Montfort, N. (2016). Exploratory Programming for the Arts and Humanities. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Moore, C. (2017). The Federal Theatre Project in the American South: The Carolina Playmakers and the Quest for American Drama. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Osborne, E. A. (2011). Staging the People: Community and Identity in the Federal Theatre Project. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Pearson, R., ed. (2007). ‘Victorian Plays Project’. Site discontinued as of February 2023. https://victorian.nuigalway.ie.Google Scholar
PH (Programming Historian). (2023). ‘Homepage’. https://programminghistorian.org/.Google Scholar
Rawson, K., & Muñoz, T. (2019). ‘Against Cleaning’. In Gold, M. K. & Klein, L. F., eds., Debates in the Digital Humanities. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Digital book, accessed 11 October 2023. https://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/projects/debates-in-the-digital-humanities-2019.Google Scholar
Risam, R. (2018). New Digital Worlds: Postcolonial Digital Humanities in Theory, Praxis, and Pedagogy. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Roh, D. S. (2019). ‘The DH Bubble: Startup Logic, Sustainability, and Performativity’. In Gold, M. K. & Klein, L. F., eds., Debates in the Digital Humanities. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Digital book, accessed 11 October 2023. https://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/projects/debates-in-the-digital-humanities-2019.Google Scholar
Tompkins, J. (2014). ‘Making the Invisible Visible: Virtual Stage Props and Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus’. In Schweitzer, M. & Zerdy, J., eds., Performing Objects and Theatrical Things. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 161–72.Google Scholar
Tufte, E. R. (2001). The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. 2nd ed. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press.Google Scholar
Vareschi, M., & Burkert, M. (2016). ‘Archives, Numbers, Meaning: The Eighteenth-Century Playbill at Scale’. Theatre Journal, 68(4), 597613.Google Scholar
Witham, B. B. (2003). The Federal Theatre Project: A Case Study. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×