Talk Python To Me #230: Python in digital humanities research
Sep 18, 2019
Cornelius van Litt, a postdoctoral researcher in medieval Islamic philosophy at Utrecht University, dives deep into the intersection of Python and digital humanities. He shares how he applies Python and OpenCV to analyze medieval manuscripts and track intellectual history. Cornelius discusses digitizing collections, detecting ownership stamps, and even creating x-ray-like visuals of text density. He advocates for bridging the technical and humanities fields, emphasizing the importance of programming skills for scholars. Tune in for insights on enhancing manuscript research through modern technology!
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Early Web Coding Sparked Lifelong Interest
- Cornelius first coded his school website in 1999 using a simple HTML book and later experimented with Flash and Visual Basic.
- He returned to programming around 2016 and adopted Python as a "Swiss army knife" for research tasks.
Commentaries Reveal Intellectual Networks
- Cornelius studies medieval Islamic philosophy and spends much time reading manuscripts to trace intellectual traditions.
- He uses commentary traditions to map how ideas moved across centuries and regions.
Physical Book Features Become Data
- Digitized manuscript covers reveal measurable physical features like flap angle that can serve as dating clues.
- Automating such measurements across thousands of images yields new comparative evidence for provenance.
