Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics
Research Seminar
Reimagining Global Cultural Heritage in a Digital Age
Presented by
Professor Gregory Crane
Chair, Department of Classics, Tufts University
Date: 2 June 2010, Wednesday
Time: 4:30 - 6:00 pm
Venue: B7603 (Lift 3, Level 7, Blue Zone), Academic Building, CityU
Abstract
We live in a globalized world where people around the world interact across boundaries of language, national border, and culture. The same digital technologies that have contributed to globalization have also provided tools -- and challenges -- for us to rethink how we study our own cultural heritages. More than 10,000,000 books representing hundreds of languages are already in digital form, while increasingly sophisticated algorithms and increasingly powerful system allow us to detect meaning within these vast collections and to work with more languages than has ever been possible before. We can and must now think about how to work with more than 4000 years of recorded history and to develop new research projects that are broader in scope and probe more deeply into primary sources.
Professor Crane will talk about how Greco-Roman antiquity fits within this changing intellectual landscape and will explore the challenges of making cultural data physically and intellectually accessible to new communities of researchers and the general public. How can Greek and Latin reach a wider audience in China?
How can ancient Chinese culture reach a wider audience in the West?
Speaker
Gregory Crane is Professor and Chair of the Department of Classics, Winnick Family Chair of Technology and Entrepreneurship, and Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at Tufts University (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/about/who/gregoryCrane). He is also the editor in chief of the Perseus Digital Library (www.perseus.tufts.edu), one of the best developed and oldest digital humanities collections available online. Crane received a Phd in Classical Philology at Harvard University in 1985 and has devoted much of his career to the development of Digital Humanities in general and of Digital Classics in particular.
