0.1. Abstract

Algorithmic Displacement and the Black Atlantic:
Retextualizing the 'Souls' Essay by W.E.B. Du Bois

Robert W. Williams
[

rwilliams@bennett.edu

]

[Presentation for the 2018 AADHum Initiative Conference,
University of Maryland, College Park, on 20 October 2018]

Computational approaches to digital humanities (DH) offer the possibility of new techniques by which to analyze patterns, visualize connections, and interpret human ideas and cultural artifacts. Yet just because we can create computer programs to study such human expressions of meaning does not imply that they will produce meaningful results. However, addressing computational DH via a focus on how humans experience and understand the world will allow us to ground algorithms in existential relationships rather than in reductive and ahistorical mechanisms.

In that spirit, my presentation discusses a methodological analogy between Paul Gilroy's concept of the Black Atlantic and the computational DH technique that I call retextualization. The Retextualizer algorithm provides one possible implementation of Gilroy's concept via which he interprets the existential basis of subjectivity and meaning generation via demographic flows across space. Specifically, he criticizes the supposed rootedness and essentialism of culture in particular places and peoples. He argues instead that the cultural meanings and practices of modernity are created transnationally via the displacement and relocation of persons as they interact with others in other contexts. The similarity and difference between the Black Atlantic concept and the Retextualizer code emerges in how displacement generates new meanings.

I created Retextualizer as an essay-specific, browser-based application using Javascript. It rearranges algorithmically, via a randomization process, the sentences of a preselected text into new configurations. Such an algorithmic displacement is not the spatial and inter-personal displacements studied by Gilroy; rather, it is a restructuring of sentences from their initial hierarchical order and signifying sequence. The new arrangement of sentences after retextualization provides the conditions for readers to formulate potentially new insights and interpretations of the original work. In that sense, retextualization parallels the Black Atlantic idea by illustrating the varied, even countless, routes by which humans produce meanings.

In addition to outlining concept and code, the presentation also sets forth a case study: I retextualize and discuss Du Bois's 1904 self-reflection on his book The Souls of Black Folk. The essay is instructive because it highlights a particular tension expressed by Du Bois. He has been trained in American and European methods of research that emphasize their supposed universality and disinterestedness, but do so to the detriment of his lived experiences and agency as a person of the African diaspora. It is in that epistemological tension and those counter-hegemonic places that I wish to position retextualization as an interpretive method of digital humanities.

♦—♦♦♦—♦

• To continue, click "NEXT" in the footer or tap the letter "N" key.

0.1. Abstract

0.2. About This Presentation

Note: The presentation's Introduction (Section 1) begins after the following pages of the front matter:
•[The remainder of this "About" page below]
•Navigating the Presentation (Help Page)
•Online Availability of Texts
•Robert W. Williams: Bio in Brief
•Acknowledgments and Copyrights
•Sub/Sections (Map)

I consider this presentation to be a DRAFT version, which also includes later clarifications. Herein, I explore ideas and lines of interpretation that may change in a future, more finalized form. Indeed, some aspects of the text may require further elaboration.

I have implemented the presentation as a browser-based hypertext. I coded the project with javascript to provide several, hopefully useful functions. Four functions can be highlighted here.

An outline tree, table of contents, and other forms of internal links offer non-linear ways to navigate through this project.

A history feature allows the user to move forwards and backwards through the pages (subsections) already accessed.

The show / hide feature permits the user to view and then cloak extra material, such as annotations, not initially displayed on a page.

Each hypertext page that forms part of the core argument will display a summary at the top of that page. The appendices, the bibliographies, and the front matter section (Section 0) do not contain them. Such page summaries are displayed by default, but can be toggled off.

For a description of these and other features, visit the hypertext page, "0.3. Navigating the Presentation (Help Page)".

Readers can access a one-page version which recreates the presentation as a single document. The hypertext's "0.3. Navigating the Presentation (Help Page)" contains further details.

— Robert W. Williams (rwilliams[at]bennett.edu)

• To continue, click "NEXT" in the footer or tap the letter "N" key.

0.2. About this Presentation [Delivered on 20 October 2018]

I have implemented the presentation as a browser-based hypertext. I coded the project with javascript to provide several, hopefully useful functions. Four functions can be highlighted here. First, internal links offer numerous, non-linear ways to access the various materials composing this project. Second, a history feature allows the user to move forwards and backwards through the hypertext pages (subsections) already accessed. Third, the show / hide feature permits the user to view and then cloak extra material, such as annotations, not initially displayed on a hypertext page. Fourth, each hypertext page that forms part of the core argument displays a summary by default. Such summaries can be toggled off.

This one-page version recreates the hypertext format as a single document. Please read the "0.3. Navigating the Presentation's One-Page Format (Help)".

0.3. Navigating the Presentation (Help Page)

Keyboard Shortcuts: Hypertext Version

a.

Along with clickable links, keyboard shortcuts can be used for navigating the hypertext project. The shift key is not needed.
•Next page: "N" or ">" [period key]
•Previous page: "P" or "<" [comma key]
•Start (Title) page: "0" [zero]
•Last (End) page: "L"
•TOC (toggle to show/hide it): "T" ("C" to Close)
•Map of all pages: "M" ("Backwards" returns to the prior page)
•One-page version (toggle to show/hide it): "O"
•Return to the hypertext format (from the one-page version): "R"
•Display all hidden notes (=Show button): "D"
•Whisk away (hide) all displayed notes (=Hide button): "W"
•View the History queue of pages visited: "V"
•Backwards to the prior page viewed (as listed in the History): "B"
•Forwards to the following page viewed (as listed in History): "F"
•Help in brief (toggle to show/hide it): "H" ("C" to Close)
•Summaries always displayed (toggle on/off): "S"
•Left navigation tree displayed (toggle on/off): "Q"
•eXit the entire project (from the END page): "X"
•Get alternate image source (for presenter's use): "G"

b.

See below for details on the navigation functions.

Footer: Next and Previous Pages; Start and End Pages

The footer at the bottom of the screen, will present several links that allow one to return to the PREVious page within the presentation's linear sequence (outline structure) or else to proceed to the NEXT page in the linear sequence. The footer links will vary depending on the current page that is being visited.

To access the start page or the final page of the presentation, click the TOC (Table of Contents) link. The footer will now contain links to the START and END pages.

When proceeding forwards through the project's linear structure via clicking the NEXT link, one ultimately will arrive at the END page. Similarly, when clicking the PREVious link, the viewer will return eventually to the START page of the entire project.

Outline Tree within Sections

The outline that is displayed within each page (screen) has clickable links to other sections of the main content, as well as to subsections within the current section. Also, there are links to the brief version of the Navigation Help and to the one-page, full-text version of the presentation. (For more details on the one-page format, read Section 0.3.11. below).

The visible outline structure covers the main content of the project. It also includes links for the END (final) page and the START (title) page.

The left navigation tree can be turned off and on (i.e., toggled) by means of the "Q" key or a Help menu.

Table of Contents (TOC)

Clicking the TOC link will display a table of contents that lists all pages of the presentation, including the START page (and the rest of the front matter), as well as the END page.

In addition, the TOC contains links for accessing the brief version of the Navigation Help and for exiting the project.

To open the TOC, you also can press the "T" key. To close the TOC, press the "T" key again or else the "C" key. Using the standard navigation operations described above, such as the clickable links or the "N" or "P" keys, will also close the TOC and take you to that new page.

Alternately, the "M" key—or map feature—transports you to a list of pages, "0.7. Sub/Sections (Map)", with hypertext links to the pages herein.

The Show / Hide Feature

Clicking the SHOW buttons found on some of the hypertext pages will display further information, such as notes and quotations.

Once the previously hidden text is displayed, clicking the HIDE button will conceal it from view.

The "D" key displays all hidden notes, which are marked by the Show buttons found on some hypertext pages. Conversely, the "W" key whisks away—hides—all revealed notes, which are labeled by the Hide buttons on a hypertext page.

Not all hypertext pages contain Show/Hide buttons.

The Summaries Display Feature

The Summaries Display feature can toggle (on or off) whether each page of the hypertext presentation automatically shows its summary text, if present. The default at the start is for all available summaries to be revealed.

Summaries displayed via this feature cannot be hidden by the "W" key or by clicking on the associated button. The Summaries Display feature first must be toggled off.

Tap the "S" key to activate the Summaries Display toggle.

If the Summaries Display feature is already enabled (i.e., on), then toggling if off will allow one to hide the summaries via measures described on this navigation help page. A short sound will be heard while toggling the feature off.

If the Summaries Display feature has been previously disabled (i.e., off), then toggling it on will cause all hypertext pages with summaries to automatically display the summary content. A longer sound will be heard while toggling the feature on. When toggled on, all displayed summaries cannot be hidden by the methods detailed elsewhere, until this feature is turned off.

Because the page summaries are coded like the Show / Hide notes, they will display the SHOW buttons when the Summaries display feature is later toggled off. Conversely, the summaries will present HIDE buttons for those pages that had been previously accessed when the Summaries display feature was active.

Do Not Use the <Backspace> Key

Do *not* use the <Backspace> key to navigate, because (at least in some browsers) it may not function as expected or may exit the project.

If you wish to go to the previous sequential page, then click the PREV link in the footer or use the "P" shortcut key.

Exiting the Presentation

To exit the project and go to the W.E.B. Du Bois site:
•click the link to "webdubois.org" located on the footer's left side; or
•click the EXIT link found at the bottom of the TOC menu; or
•click the EXIT link located in the footer of the END page; or
•press the "X" key while at the END page.

To exit the project and go to my Lectures page on the W.E.B. Du Bois site, click the "lectures" part of the link found on the left side of the footer.

Note: One cannot exit from the one-page version. One must be viewing the hypertext presentation.

History—or Pages Viewed—Feature

While in the hypertext version of the project, one can return again the pages previously viewed in the reverse order in which they were accessed. Press the "B" key for this backwards movement through the History queue. Once one has been moving through the History queue, press the "F" key to move forwards through it.

If one has reached the beginning of the History queue (i.e., no earlier pages visited) or has arrived at the end of the queue (i.e., no further pages visited), then a beep-like sound will be heard in browsers like Chorme and Opera. Internet Explorer does not generate a sound. Regardless of the browser, the page displayed will not change when the history queue has reached an end.

Note: Once pages have been visited or revisited in the presentation, then for each new page accessed the earliest page will be removed from the History queue so that the new page can be added to it. Pages removed from the queue in this process cannot be revisited through the History feature, only via the usual methods of navigation described herein.

To view all pages listed in the History queue, as well as the relative position of the currently viewed page, press the "V" key to display a pop-up, intra-browser window (alert box) with those details.

Note that when any page is accessed via the standard navigation methods (i.e., Next, Previous, TOC, Outline tree) and not via the Forwards or Backwards operations of the History feature, that page is placed at the end of the queue. Hence, even if the newly navigated page were accessed while stepping through the History, it is still placed at the end of the queue.

Accessing Help within the Presentation

To access this Help page, you will find a clickable link in the table of contents (TOC) at item "0.3. Navigation (Help)".

Note: Press the letter "B" key to retrace your steps to the page you were viewing before the Navigation Help was accessed. The number of pages involved in this retracing process depends on whether you were within the History queue or at its end point. Read Subsection 0.3.8. above to learn how the History feature operates.

Pressing the "H" key within a page (except this one) will activate a brief version of the Help function, emphasizing the keyboard shortcuts and the ways to exit the project. To close the "Help (in Brief)" press the "H" key again or else the "C" key. The standard navigation operations identified herein, including the clickable links or the "N" or "P" keys, will also quit the "Help (in Brief)" and put you on that other page.

Also, the brief version of the Help can be accessed via a link, "Navigation Help (Brief)", which is located at the bottom of the left-side navigation bar and at the bottom of the table of contents.

In addition, pressing the small "H" on the header's right-side will toggle the display of the "Help (in Brief)" on a page (except this one which does not display an "H").

The One-Page, Full-Text Version of the Presentation

For purposes of reading or printing, the full text of this otherwise hypertext-oriented presentation can be accessed sequentially as ONE PAGE in the current window. Note that the images found on the pages that start each hypertext section are not displayed in the one-page version.

Also, one can access the one-page, full-text version via the left navigation menu and via the Table of Contents (TOC) menu.

Within the one-page version navigation menus are located at the top and bottom of the page, as well as between the major sections.

To exit the page of sequential text and resume the hypertext-based presentation, click one of the links labeled "Return to Hypertext Format". They are located at the top and bottom of the full text, as well as between the major sections.

Please do *not* use the <Backspace> key for navigation. Under specific conditions it will dump you completely out of the full-text page as well as the presentation itself, at least with some browsers.

The one-page version does not possess the same History functionality as the hypertext presentation.

Image Files on Section Pages

Each page that starts a section presents one or more image files. The images may contain an

asterisk

somewhere in an upper portion (often the upper left). This indicates that a larger version of the image can be viewed by clicking on it. That larger image will open in a modal window, which will contain a link to close the image and return to the section page. Pressing the <Escape>, or "C" keys will close the modal window. One might also click the image itself.

In some cases there may be one or more images to view as part a sequence. If there is another large image to view from the open modal window, then a brief message will be visible in the upper right corner indicating that one can click the image to proceed forward. At the end of the sequence the last file will indicate that the image can be closed.

The one-page, full-text version of the presentation does not contain the section-page images.

0.3. Navigating the Presentation's One-Page Format (Help)

This page contains the full text of the hypertext-oriented presentation arranged sequentially in one window. Any information, including images, revealed via the SHOW buttons of the hypertext version are displayed herein.

The one-page format does not display any images located on the pages that start each hypertext section.

Within this one-page, full-text version one will find a navigation menu at the top and bottom of the page, as well as between the major sections.

To return to the hypertext-based lecture, click the menu link labeled "Return to Hypertext Format". Or press the "R" key, or the letter "O" key.

One can only exit the entire presentation while in the hypertext version. Read the hypertext Navigation Help subsection entitled "Exiting the Presentation" for details.

Do *not* use the <Backspace> key because it may exit the presentation.

The "M" key will take you to the "0.7. Sub/Sections (Map)", which lists—or maps—the one-page version. The links allow movement within this page.

This one-page format does not possess the same History functionality as the hypertext version.

While in the one-page version you can view the Help info by pressing the "H" key once. To go back to the place where you initially invoked Help, press the "B" key. Or else, pressing "H" a second time, but before pressing "B", will return you to your initial place (and render the "B" key moot).

•Caveat: After tapping "H" to access Help, if next you scroll the page via navigation keys or mouse wheel without having pressed "B" once or "H" a second time, then a later tap of "H" takes you to Help and makes the "B" key moot. This caveat does not apply if scrolling via touch screen or scroll bar.

0.4. Online Availability of Texts

0.4.1.

This presentation online:

a.

www.webdubois.org/lectures/aadh2018.html

b.

One-page format: www.webdubois.org/lectures/aadh2018.pdf

c.

Lectures page: www.webdubois.org/lectures/rwlectures.html

0.4.2.

Du Bois's Texts Pertinent to This presentation:

a.

The Souls of Black Folk (1903). Chicago: A.C. McClurg. URL: www.webdubois.org/wdb-souls.html.

b.

"The Souls of Black Folk" (1904). The Independent, Vol.57, No.2920 (17 November 1904): p.1152. URL: www.webdubois.org/dbSouls-1904Essay.html.

c.

"The Souls of Black Folk": the original essay available in Section 7.4.

0.4.3.

Other Texts by W.E.B. Du Bois:

a.

The "Works Cited and Suggested Resources" section (Section 8) contains various links to online sources for Du Bois's primary texts cited in this presentation: Section 8.1.

b.

My website at www.webdubois.org also provides links to various Du Boisian primary sources.: visit the site map or the Sources page.

0.5. Robert W. Williams: Bio in Brief

I am a Political Science professor at Bennett College in Greensboro, NC. There I teach a range of courses in the field, including those of my academic specialization, political theory. Expanding on my graduate education in modern, contemporary, and critical theories, I also teach courses on African American political thought and on W.E.B. Du Bois. Previously, I taught at Livingstone College in Salisbury, NC.

My research concentrates typically on meta-theoretical analyses that address the assumptions and implications underpinning the theories themselves. My previous studies have focused on environmental justice, the spatiality of politics, and cyber-politics. I focus my current efforts on the philosophical dimensions of W.E.B. Du Bois's thought, especially as they relate to his philosophy of social inquiry. Such efforts also involve studying the intellectual context of his era. In addition, I conduct digital humanities research on Du Bois (projects page).

My curriculum vitae (online) contains more information on my research and teaching experiences. Also listed on the C.V. are my other conference presentations on Du Bois (lectures page).

My college email address: rwilliams[at]bennett.edu

My personal academic website: www.webdubois.org

At academia.edu: https://bennett.academia.edu/RobertWilliams

0.6. Acknowledgments and Copyrights

0.6.1. Acknowledgments:
I wish to thank the many and various persons who have assisted me and made this presentation possible. Arranged alphabetically, the list includes:

•Dr. Gwendolyn Bookman, Chair, Dept. of Social & Behavioral Sciences, Bennett College;

•Dr. Dorothy Browne, former Provost, Bennett College;

•Dr. Michele Linster, Interim Provost, Bennett College;

•Ms. Nadine McCain-Smith, Divisional Administrative Assistant, Bennett College;

•Ms. Sylvia Nicholson, Coordinator of Sponsored Programs, Bennett College;

•Dr. Catherine Knight Steele, African American Digital Humanities Program Committee, University of Maryland, College Park;

•Dr. Annette Wilson, Dean, Bennett College.

0.6.2. Copyrights and Fair Use:
The various image files found in this presentation are copyrighted by their respective owners or registrants. The image files herein are used for educational purposes only and in accordance with the guidelines of "educational fair use". If anyone has a concern regarding an image file, please contact Dr. Robert W. Williams (rwilliams[at]bennett.edu).

0.7. Sub/Sections (Map)

0.0. Start (Title) Page
•0.1. Abstract
•0.2. About This Presentation
•0.3. Navigating the Presentation (Help Page)
•0.4. Online Availability of Texts
•0.5. Robert W. Williams: Bio in Brief
•0.6. Acknowledgments and Copyrights
•0.7. Sub/Sections (Map)

1.0. Introduction
•1.1. Modernity and Meaning
•1.2. Presentation Overview

2.0. Paul Gilroy: The Black Atlantic
•2.1. Gilroy's Concept
•2.2. Gilroy's Reading of Souls

3.0. Methodology and Meaning
•3.1. The Meaning in/of Texts
•3.2. Algorithms and Digital Humanities
•3.3. Digital Mediations

4.0. The Retextualizer DH Project
•4.1. Overview: Retextualizer
•4.2. Retextualizer Research

5.0. The "Souls" Essay Retextualized
•5.1. The "Souls" Essay (SBFI)
•5.2. The SBFI as a Case Study

6.0. In Closing
•6.1. Reprise and Future Projects
•6.2. Caveats and Limitations

7.0. Appendices
•7.1. Operating Retextualizer
•7.2. Coding Retextualizer
•7.3. The SBFI Retextualized: Cases
•7.4. The SBFI: Original Text

8.0. Works Cited and Suggested Resources
•8.1. Works Cited in the Presentation
•8.2. Suggested DH Resources

9.0. End (Last) Page

SECTION 1: Introduction

SECTION 1: Introduction

1.1. Modernity
and
Meaning

[Section 1.1. Summary.]

•Gilroy's concept of the Black Atlantic stresses Africana agency and subjectivity in the creation of modernity.
•The concept highlights the varied sources and routes involved in the generation of culture and meaning.
•It counters the Enlightenment idea of reason by illuminating the historical role of force and oppression.
•We can code the subjectivity and geographical displacement at the core of the Black Atlantic concept, via digital humanities, as textual displacement.
•Retextualizer as a DH tool helps to create the conditions for multiple interpretations of Du Bois's 'Souls' essay.

I appreciate the opportunity offered by this conference and its organizers, the African American Digital Humanities Initiative of the University of Maryland, to discuss the confluence of the ideas of Paul Gilroy, W.E.B. Du Bois, and digital humanities (DH).

1.1.1. The Black Atlantic Concept

Paul Gilroy's concept of the Black Atlantic (1993) refers to the ways in which the experiences of African and African diasporic peoples, arising from their interactions across the lands that border the Atlantic Ocean, have helped to constitute Western modernity. His concept moreover asserts the formative dimensions of slavery in the development of Western modernity, thereby challenging ideas of modernity that emphasize the European Enlightenment ideals of universal reason and progress.

The concept of the Black Atlantic also foregrounds the important role of subjectivity, especially Africana subjectivity, in the production of modernity. For Gilroy, subjectivity involves the capacity for the creation of culture and community by means of shared experiences that emerge from the journeys of Africana persons, including enslaved persons, across time and space. Such experiences also express the tensions encountered along the multitude of paths, tensions that highlight the dehumanization and marginalization of persons of color within the ongoing White supremacy of modernity's imperialistic practices and norms.

1.1.2. The Presentation's Goal

I propose that we can render the Black Atlantic concept in methodological terms so as to embrace the tenets and implications of Gilroy's idea. In my presentation, I wish to examine and build on the implications of Gilroy's ideas: namely, that subjectivity constitutes meaning via the embodied experiences of Africana peoples moving or being moved from place to place in the greater Atlantic region. Such a process of geographic displacement also conveys the fluidity and melding of experiences in the production of meaning, all amidst the differences of individuals and communities themselves. For Gilroy, no single country, nationality, or culture, however defined, is the monolithic producer of modernity and cultural meaning. This simultaneously avoids solipsism and atomistic understandings of modernity and meaningfulness per se.

1.1.3. The Retextualizer DH Application
We can develop a methodology that embraces the tenets of the Black Atlantic concept. Via the digital humanities we can seek an analog to the geographical displacement and spatial journeys framed by Gilroy in the Black Atlantic concept, specifically, via the textual displacement of the constitutive components of cultural artifacts. I coded a digital humanities application, Retextualizer, as a way to algorithmically displace the content of a text so as to provide the conditions for interpretation and reinterpretation of it. This application exemplifies what can be called "computer assisted interpretation and analysis", or CAIA. As a case study I will apply Retextualizer to one short work by Du Bois.

1.1.4. Du Bois's 'The Souls of Black Folk' (1904)

Herein I focus on Du Bois's essay 'The Souls of Black Folk' (SBFI 1904), a self-reflection on his famous book by the same name. He publishes the essay in 1904 in the periodical, The Independent. The SBFI essay is significant for Du Bois and for scholars of Du Bois because he expresses the ambivalence of modernity—the tensions between dominant and marginalized communities and cultures—that Gilroy examines in The Black Atlantic. Indeed, he extensively analyzes the book, The Souls of Black Folk (SBF 1903) in The Black Atlantic (1993), although he does not mention Du Bois's own self-review. In the 'Souls' essay Du Bois is concerned with issues of subjectivity and objectivity that are integral to the Western traditions of conventional social research of his time. Via Retextualizer we can, so to speak, encounter in our own ways the multiple routes to meaning creation via rearranging the essay's sentences into new configurations.

1.1.5. Intra-textual Technique

By reconfiguring the sentences of one original work, Retextualizer as a digital technology allows us to practice a form of interpretive methodology that can be called intra-textual: via the technique of close reading we seek to understand the meanings put forth by Du Bois within one essay, but also we interpret the ideas as they appear to us in the evidence (i.e., Du Bois's words themselves). As I mention below in Sections 3.1 and 4.2., the essay also possesses intertextual dimensions.
[Note —Relevant Definitions]

I define the following terms for the purposes of this project.

Methodologies offer systematic procedures which we employ to understand and to know about the phenomena of reality. Empirical methodologies seek quantifiable patterns in the data. Rationalistic methodologies utilize reason so that we can ascertain the immutable structures of reality or the cosmic order (e.g., Plato; Descartes). Interpretive methodologies examine how, in the social production of the world, humans also generate meanings about what they understand about the world.

Technologies involve the means, machinic or digital, by which we create and/or interact with an artifact (produced by humans).

Techniques refer to how we use a method and/or technology. For example, close reading is a technique that characterizes interpretive methods. It can employ digital technologies to render, access, and/or manipulate what is otherwise a material artifact. Via close reading we seek the meanings in a work by focusing on the elements that convey the sense of the work (e.g., themes, assumptions, values, and ideals, whether implicit or explicit).

Computer assisted interpretation and analysis (CAIA) involves methodologies, technologies, and techniques. Retextualizer, the DH application discussed herein, is such a CAIA project with an interpretive methodological focus using digital technology to aid in the close-reading technique.

[End of Note .]

1.1.6. Multiple Routes to Interpretation

Du Bois's SBFI will supply a case study in the use of Retextualizer. We can examine what multiple routes—that is, reconfigured sentences—helps us to understand about . . .

the structure of the text itself;

how intelligibility is generated (e.g., sense and nonsense in the rearranged sentences);

how the marginalizing tensions in the production of modernity (as per Gilroy) perhaps can be rendered more obvious in the reconfigured sentences of a text; and

how our experiences with the reconfigured text (algorithmically displaced sentences) potentially can produce new insights into Du Bois's ideas.

Significantly, the Retextualizer application allows others to interpret and reinterpret Du Bois's SBFI for themselves, thereby producing at least one condition for cooperative dialogues about Du Bois, his ideas, and his abiding importance.

1.2. Presentation Overview

[Section 1.2. Summary.]

•Section 2: Gilroy's Black Atlantic concept and its tenets.
•Section 3: Method and meaning; algorithmic interpretation.
•Section 4: Retextualizer: digital humanities project and goals.
•Section 5: Du Bois's 'Souls' essay (SBFI 1904) retextualized.
•Section 6: In-closing and caveats.
•Section 7: AppendicesRetextualizer: use; coding; cases; SBFI.

1.2.1. Section Descriptions

I present my project through the following sections.

Section 2, "Paul Gilroy: The Black Atlantic", covers the concept and its implications for understanding Africana experiences in the creation of modernity.

"Methodology and Meaning", Section 3, outlines the analogy between geographical displacement and textual displacement, as well as examines the multiple routes by which constellations of meaning emerge from interpretation. Also, the section sketches the ways that digital tools mediate our interpretive efforts.

I introduce the DH application at the core of this presentation in Section 4, "The Retextualizer DH Project". The section discusses several interpretive strategies made possible via the application.

Section 5, entitled "The "Souls" Essay Retextualized", does exactly that. It first details the importance of Du Bois's self-reflection essay, "The Souls of Black Folk" (SBFI), and then uses the DH tool to reconfigure it. The section also provides examples drawn from reconfigured cases of the "Souls" essay.

The final section, "In Closing" (Section 6), offers a reprise of the presentation's main points. In addition, it provides several caveats to the interpretive use of the Retextualizer application, as well as to algorithmic interpretation in general.

The "Appendices" in Section 7 detail the operation of Retextualizer and various aspects of its coding. Moreover, the section presents the original text of "The Souls of Black Folk" essay and also the full-text of several retextualized examples.

1.2.2. The Citation System Used in the Presentation

Du Bois is referenced within the presentation by an abbreviated title and year of publication. Section 8.1. contains the "Works Cited" in the presentation. Section 8.2. suggests various resources in the digital humanities.

SECTION 2: Paul Gilroy: The Black Atlantic

SECTION 2: Paul Gilroy: The Black Atlantic

2.1. Gilroy's

Concept

[Section 2.1. Summary.]

•Gilroy retheorizes the creation of European modernity via the Black Atlantic concept.
•For Gilroy, modernity has no one place or culture of origin, and no single path to its creation.
•Du Bois and others exemplify the Black Atlantic:
•

They are both the objects of research and the subjects helping to produce the modern Atlantic world.
•

Their geographical displacements help to constitute their identities, which are vital to the rise of modernity.
•

They challenge the marginalization of persons of color during the European Enlightenment.

With the Black Atlantic concept Gilroy proposes to retheorize the creation of European modernity. Along the way Gilroy counters the received wisdom of the European Enlightenment and Africentricity. The Black Atlantic is integral to and affected by the production of modernity. The concept's temporal and interpretive scope concentrates on trans-Atlantic slavery from the 1500 and 1600s to the struggles over its abolition and its aftermath into the 20th century.

2.1.1. Tenets

The Black Atlantic is a concept by which to understand the production of modernity in the West (1500s to 1900s) by means of subjectivity/ies that are vital in the development of the identities of individuals and groups. According to Gilroy, individual and group identities occur as a result of their movements and voyages from many places across a multiplicity of routes over time and space. For Gilroy, Du Bois and others exemplify the Black Atlantic concept, at once the objects of research and the subjects helping to create the modern Atlantic world.

2.1.2. Implications

Gilroys argues that the Black Atlantic implicates several dimensions in the development of cultures and modernity:
Cultural Implications

Cultures are not essentialist: they are not static and unchanging.

No one nationality or culture contributes to the creation of Western modernity. There is no primacy of one culture.

Nationalities are not monolithic: they are composed of diverse communities, and individuals within communities can have have differentiated experiences.

Thus, fluidity typifies cultural creations.

Modernity does not have its origins in one culture or by one route; there are many origins and routes.

Implications for Understanding the European Enlightenment

"Man" in the European Enlightenment sense is not universal. "Univeral man" in historical practice means that White males of property, education, and high status typically dominated, thereby forfeiting any claim that their values and ideals are universal.

The so-called universal man supposedly controls bodily passions via disincarnated reason (i.e., via the intrumental reason of means and ends used in the pursuit of self-interest). This is an abstraction of the European Enlightenment. Rather, we experience the world in our interactions with it and our fellow humans, thereby emphasizing embodiment as a characteristic of the creation of modernity.

Extending the logic and consequences of Gilroy's concept: modernity is a set of ongoing processes. Modernity is not all of one piece and has not generated equality and progress for all.

2.2. Gilroy's
Reading
of Souls

[Section 2.2. Summary.]

•For Gilroy, Du Bois illustrates some of the multiple places and routes by which modernity has been created.
•Over his life Du Bois's travels and residences become the sources via which he interprets the global span of injustice and the global potential for change.
•For Gilroy, double consciousness highlights the contradictions that arise in the production of modernity: the ideals of reason and progress are undermined by force and exclusion.

Using the imagery of ships and people sailing over the seas, Gilroy interprets several authors and themes, including Martin R. Delaney, Richard Wright, James Weldon Johnson, Alexander Crummell, as well as music. Du Bois occupies a chapter in the book (Gilroy 1993: Ch. 4).

Du Bois studies in Germany and America. He learns the conventions of social sciences dominant at the time. Gilroy discusses the importance of Du Bois's numerous journeys across the Atlantic Ocean to and from Europe and Africa (1993: pp.113-117). For Gilroy, as a result of such travels Du Bois comes to incorporate Africa and African Diasporic communities into his theoretical understanding of race in the production of modernity. Du Bois's Pan-Africanism and his well known statement on the global dimensions of the color line confirm for Gilroy that Du Bois does not consider the world to speak in one voice or to sing only a few melodies.

Moreover, Gilroy studies Du Bois with regard to double consciousness as an example of how the Black Atlantic concept helps us to interpret modernity in its complexities and contradictions. Indeed, double consciousness highlights the ambivalences of modernity. The ongoing development of modernity, for Gilroy, places Du Bois into (at least) two dimensions of the same world. The progress and freedom of some in terms of wealth and status goes along with the exploitation and discrimination of others in terms of race, gender, and class. According to Gilroy, Du Bois expresses those contradictions in the concept of double consciousness, a concept that conveys the role of subjectivity as integral to our interactions with modernity, but also which is affected by modernity itself.

I argue that Gilroy's idea of the role of subjectivity in the creation of modernity also implicates the creation of meaning.

SECTION 3: Methodology and Meaning

SECTION 3: Methodology and Meaning

3.1.
The Meaning

in/of Texts

[Section 3.1. Summary.]

•Human subjectivities generate the meanings—values, ideas, goals—by which we understand and act in the world.
•A methodological analog to the Black Atlantic concept foregrounds the multiple interactions among persons by which meanings are made.
•Likewise, multiple interactions among readers constitute the interpretations of an artifact.
•Artifacts are part of a constellation of meaning production: creators, audience, contexts, and social relations.

3.1.1. Subjectivity Implicates Meaning

Humans in their subjectivity—as agents in the world—make meanings via living and being. Humans seek to make sense of the cosmic order and disorder, and by understanding, incompletely and endlessly, they know something about themselves and others. Meanings, and by extension meaningfulness, include the following:

the values that humans hold dear and by which they justify their actions and regimes, such as freedom and equality;

the ideals that humans strive to achieve, such as industrial and technological progress, or economic prosperity, or a oneness of the individual with the world as in the Tao Te Ching and in poems by Li Bai;

the themes in the artifacts that we create, such as the inescapability of fate in a Sophoclean tragedy, or the message of hope and ingenuity in the story-telling of a Sheherazade.

the purposes (or end goals) of some thing, situation, or being, such as a particular event in one's life, or something more general like the ultimate purpose of individual or human existence, or of the cosmos itself; and

the patterns of thought and behavior in our actions, such as found in our traditions of living and being in groups, associations, polities, societies, communities, and civilizations, or such as located in what we call human nature.

Of course, values, ideals, and themes interrelate and overlap, because we humans ourselves interact in myriad ways and places.

What a value means in practice will vary. For some freedom might be freedom to fail, while for others, freedom from want. Similarly, for some equality might be individual rights, while for others, equality will be group-oriented. Nevertheless, we seek to understand humans in their patterned behaviors and in their uniqueness. We wish to interpret the meaning in their actions and in how they themselves understand the meaningfulness of their lives, actions, and artifacts on their own terms, the terms of their singular subjectivities and their identities with groups and nations. Such is the content of the interpretive methods of the social sciences and the humanities. Such is the content of human subjectivities that forever occupies us as scholars and as individuals.

3.1.2. Methodological Analog

How might Gilroy's Black Atlantic concept be applied as a way to make sense of the subjectivity embodied in cultural artifacts? Is there a methodological application that is analogous to the Black Atlantic concept? The advantages of such a methodology: such a methodology would help to foreground some of the ways that meaning is generated: namely, via multiple, iterative interactions between persons seeking to understand the world so as to make and remake it for their varied, human purposes.

In my reading of Gilroy, his concept of the Black Atlantic implicates subjectivity in terms of its role in the creation of meaning in culture, as well as the very human uses made of these meanings as paths to understanding and acting in the world. A methodology analogous to the concept assumes that the subjectivities at the core of the rise of modernity also involve the production of meaning—the meaning at the heart of the self-identity and the meaning at the heart of the melding, or hybridity, of communities.

3.1.3. Texts as Constellations of Meanings

A cultural artifact, such as a work of art, literature, and/or philosophy, may be a singular item of physical or digital mass, yet it will "hold" a legion of meanings because it will provoke and influence numerous interpretive activities, potentially contentious and always never-ending. The actions of interpretation have several components.

The author, artist, or cultural creator makes the artifact, and thereby sets up the conditions for meaning production as a result of the very creation of the artifact itself. (Of course, the artists themselves are likewise mediated by their training, and by their personal and professional backgrounds and the contexts in which they work).

The author or artist is only one of a multitude of interpreters.

The author/artist/creator does not have primacy as far as meaning production is concerned. Other meanings become attached to the work, sometimes in keeping with the author's intentions, often times not.

The multitude of subjectivities, always already embodied, will bring their insights into the interpretation of the meanings of the artifacts. The similarities and differences of race, class, differential abilities, and sexual orientation and identities will provide the experiences and understandings that exist at the core of the insights.

The work and its meanings are not self-contained: indeed, the meanings arise from a web, or network of possibilities incarnated in individuals, other artifacts, historical contexts, and the social relations of production. In short, artifacts are part of a constellation of meaning production. No work in itself all that is needed to make sense of it. Pervading the work is intertextuality. Intertextuality, as an interpretive concept, holds that any work directly or indirectly alludes to, references, or otherwise evokes different works by the same or different creators (G. Allen 2000). Such allusions, references, and evocations are necessarily integral to understanding the individual work itself. The many routes to understanding the meanings of a work entails an endless chain of signification. Consequently, the meanings of a work and the meanings in a work are neither fully autarckic nor autonomous, neither solely creator-centric nor stable over time and place.

The preceding parallels and highlights the implications of Gilroy's Black Atlantic concept. The goal is to fashion a tool and a technique by which to implement his idea methodologically. The digital humanities offer avenues of opportunity.

3.2. Algorithms
and
Digital Humanities

[Section 3.2. Summary.]

•Via digital humanities, Gilroy's tenet of geographical displacement can be coded as textual displacement.
•DH technologies can algorithmically rearrange the parts of a text.
•Such reconfigurations facilitate re/interpretation of an artifact by means of defamiliarization.

3.2.1. Algorithmic Displacement

The digital humanities can provide a way to interact with a text or texts so as to implement the tenets of the Black Atlantic concept. In particular, via DH-inspired techniques we can implement Gilroy's tenet of geographical displacement in terms of textual displacement performed algorithmically. What makes algorithmic displacement a DH analog to Gilroy's Black Atlantic concept? DH techniques facilitate re/interpretation by providing the means to digitally rearrange the parts of a text more easily than by other and earlier means (e.g., Dada, cut-ups, etc.).

3.2.2. Textual Interventions: Other Examples

Working with text, art, and other forms of human artifacts has a long history: from Tristan Tzara and the Dada movement to the Surrealists, from William Burroughs and Brion Gysin to McGann and Samuels.

Later scholars characterize such forms of textual interventions as examples of algorithmic criticism (e.g., Ramsay 2011).

Dada is an avant-garde artistic movement that formed in several European cities during the post-World War-I era. To counter the instrumental reason that they hold as responsible for the World War, Dadaists emphasize chance, attacking reason for its supposed universality, neutral, inescapable, and progressive characteristics. For Dada chance lies outside human control (Hopkins 2004).

The different textual interventions possess some similarities. For example, each makes no attempt to create an intelligible or rational final artifact from the rules—the algorithms—set forth. The specific rules devised and the material used, however, do vary (Hopkins 2004; Kochhar-Lindgren et al. 2009). The Exquisite Corpse game of the Surrealists establishes agreement among the players on the sentence structure that is to be created as a result of each person in turn adding a word to the word already offered by the previous player. Likewise, Tristan Tzara in "How to Make a Dadaist Poem" (Tzara 1920) and the "cut-ups" procedure of Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs (Burroughs 1963) follow a process whereby they slice already published texts or film footage into pieces and then splice those pieces together. Ultimately, the intent of Dadaism, Surrealism, Burroughs, and Gysin is to defamiliarize: their efforts and the artifacts produced are to undermine the given and to shake the complacency and blandness of 20th century European and American life. Moreover, such examples of textual intervention consider chance to be an important aspect of the creative process: the procedures will yield unpredictable results in the artifacts so produced.

In the field of literary studies as an academic discipline algorithmic criticism has become a more widely used set of techniques (Ramsay 2011). For my purposes, McGann and Samuels (1999) are notable. They argue for textual "deformance": remove certain parts of speech in a poem or even reverse its line order, all so as to study the work in new and fresh ways. Their work has garnered support (e.g., Cohen 2006; Sample 2012), but also critique (e.g., Hoover 2005 & 2007).

Retextualizer as a DH tool participates in algorithmic criticism. The application is similar to previous non-digital interventions, such as with Dadaism or McGann and Samuels, in that it proceeds via rules and seeks the goal of defamiliarization. Retextualizer differs from Dadaism and Surrealism in that it is not challenging instrumental reason and is not assuming that chance—randomization, digitally speaking—is fully separate from the human (coder's) touch.

With Retexutalizer we attend consciously to how text is being rearranged. Chance in the form of computer randomization occurs with our awareness that the programmers use functions—often related to time—that provide a seed number for the generation of random numbers. The specific numbers generated are not put forward by humans, but nonetheless result from human-coded and human-created protocols. The numbers do not result from natural processes. This leads us to the mediating dimensions of digital technology.

3.3.
Digital

Mediations

[Section 3.3. Summary.]

•Retextualizer as a DH tool facilitates the reconfiguration of sentences . . .
•. . . and also mediates the interpretive process itself.
•DH tools and techniques stand between the artifact and the humans doing the interpreting.
•Thus, DH and the interpretations are not necessarily neutral because we write the code and choose the parameters.

3.3.1. Mediating Technology

In this presentation I wish to both foreground the substance of interpretation, as well as the technology itself, the DH tool Retextualizer. Indeed, the application does require some attention. Retextualizer does more than facilitate the reconfiguration of sentences on the paths to interpretive goals. It also mediates the interpretive processes themselves.

Such mediations can affect the substance of interpretation itself because DH tools and techniques stand between the artifact (e.g., art, text, music, etc.) and the humans doing the interpreting. As a consequence, DH and the interpretations arising from such studies are not necessarily neutral per se because the programmers code the parameters. Choices are made by the coders.

To be studied via DH the artifacts need to be rendered into a form that is usable by digital technologies. In short, the artifacts must be digitized in the formats appropriate to the tool to be used. Nevertheless, some artifacts or components of artifacts are difficult to render for the purposes of textual interventions. As relates to Du Bois, especially his manuscripts and typescripts, for example, digital humanists must decide how to include any corrections, deletions, or additions to the text and how to designate them. Is the original document to be preserved as well as the changes? Or do we simply insert the changes (perhaps so noting them)? Perhaps the original version is significant in its own right, as are the changes, so as to examine how Du Bois composed his works.

Moreover, as Stephen Ramsay indicates, the natural and physical sciences differ in terms of how they approach the phenomena to be studied. Science seeks one optimal answer by which to explain the phenomena, while the humanities use artifacts to elicit dialog over the many ways that the phenomena can be interpreted (Ramsay 2011: pp.14-15). In a similar vein as Ramsay, Johanna Drucker asks (2012b) whether the academic humanities' values and assumptions are part of DH projects? Or is there some form of reductivism occurring insofar as the evidence is treated like data. In short, is the evidence treated as discrete bits of information devoid of intrinsic connections with other bits of information rather than as an indicator of human experiences, irreducible and signifying? In short, is the evidence treated as discrete bits of information devoid of intrinsic connections with other bits of information, rather than as indicators of human experiences, irreducible and meaningful?

Related to such critiques is the ubiquity of means/ends, or instrumental, rationality and the limitations that it poses to humanities interpretations. Although instrumental rationality has a role in solving problems, as Ramsay notes, a prevailing result, if not sometimes a goal, of humanities work is to highlight the multiple possibilities of meaning in an artifact, especially by means of conversation about the works themselves. Instrumental rationality is essentially linear in its use as a way to find the optimal path to one solution.

3.3.2. A Means/Ends Linearity to Algorithmic Displacement?

Does an algorithmic approach reproduce the linearity of means/ends rationality, thereby undermining the attempt to approach texts as variegated routes to meaning? Algorithmic criticism means that steps are followed to create something or to generate a desired result, whether it be a product, event, analysis, or end state. The algorithm is basically linear, although it could contain decision nodes that branch into different paths depending on the conditions or states encountered when following the algorithm. The algorithm and any decision nodes are pre-established, coded before hand by the programmers. As a consequence, void is any definition of chance as natural unpredictability with humans having no role to play in the outcomes.

As I will detail below, Retextualizer follows an algorithm when rearranging the sentences of a text. However, the meanings that may result from such algorithmic reconfigurations exceed the steps involved in the algorithm itself. That is, meaning generation can be facilitated by an set of instructions, but such meanings are not reducible to the algorithm itself. A number of components are required, none of which alone is sufficient to generate the potential array of meanings from a work. The components include:

the algorithm(s) by which we interpret the artifacts;

the text, or other artifact, that is being studied;

The author, or creator, who combined the signifying elements together to fashion the artifact;

the context providing referents for the authors/creators, including paratexts (works associated with the text under scrutiny), and the intertexts (works representing the text's network of allusions);

the editors, staff, and publishers (as applicable) who mediated the artifact's actual material or digital production;

the translator (if applicable) for works conveyed in other languages; and

the audiences, lay and scholarly, spanning times and places, who bring their own insights, needs, and experiences to bear.

Accordingly, the above components—and perhaps still others—frame the conditions needed for generating and interpreting the meaning of and in human works.
[Note —Other Critiques of the Digital Humanities.]

Digital humanities are useful, however, they possess several other limitations, which are being documented increasingly by digital humanists critical of the status quo. Their critiques go by the names of Transform DH and Critical DH (Kim & Stommel N.D.; Risam, Roopika. 2015a).

Who Is Encouraged to Do Digital Humanities? The digital universe is also not demographically as inclusive as it might be (Bailey 2011). The many White digital humanists have tended to concentrate on the authors and creators they themselves have studied.

Who Is Being Studied in DH Projects? As a consequence of the preceding, DH projects and archives often have focused on the works of White men and women (Gallon 2016; Koh 2012). However, as time has passed those studied and archived via DH tools have become more demographically and historically inclusive.

The Digital Divide. The material relations of production intrude on any happy picture of a world of end-users being the audience for textual interpretations. Computer assisted interpretation and analysis is predicated on a technology that permits people from across the globe to work together. However, problems exist. A well functioning digitality requires the materiality of hardware and the infrastructures of telecommunications and software, as well as the superstructures of education and political regulation in the public interest. The digital divide separates us from technology due to cost, training, and (I will add) the abiding social relations of production (e.g., Council of Economic Advisers 2015; Raine 2016).

[End of Note .]

SECTION 4: The Retextualizer DH Project

SECTION 4: The Retextualizer DH Project

4.1. Overview:

Retextualizer

[Section 4.1. Summary.]

•Retextualizer as a browser-based DH application.
•It reconfigures the sentences of specific essays by Du Bois.
•Retextualizer's goal: establish the conditions for new interpretations of a text.
•

Do new ideas or themes emerge in the reconfigured versions?
•

Do new research topics arise?
•

Do retextualized versions maintain intelligibility?

4.1.1. Description

I coded Retextualizer in JavaScript as a browser-based application which is oriented to digital humanities research. I designed it to facilitate new interpretations of specific Du Boisian essays by means of disassembling the texts into meaningful components—sentences—and then reassembling the sentences into different configurations. Such new configurations can be random sequences or in reverse order, all with the goal of providing the conditions for new insights into the text, its ideas, and its themes.

The digital humanities project page on my website, webdubois.org, lists a total of six short essays by Du Bois:

•"Souls of Black Folk" [SBFI] (The Independent, 1904);

•"The Individual and Social Conscience" [IASC] (1905);

•"Address to the Country" [ATTC] (1906);

•"The Nature of Intellectual Freedom" [IFRE] (1949);

•"Apologia", Suppression of the African Slave-Trade [SSTA] (1954); and

•"Postscript", The Ordeal of Mansart [PSOM] (1957)

Each Retextualizer web page repeats the project's general purpose, as well as the instructions. Also, each project page contains more information relevant to that partricular essay.

4.1.2. General Goals of Retextualization

We can examine themes that are said to characterize the original text.

Do new themes or ideas appear to the reader? We might be able to generate research topics based on the new configurations of the retextualized work.

Do the themes characteristic of the original remain in the rearranged version? Why or why not?

Does the structure of the essay form tend toward intelligibility and consistency even if it is a retextualized version? If so, why? If not, why not?

Can nonsensical arrangements be refashioned to make sense by adding to or subtracting from the arrangement? By clarifying antecedents and pronouns? By expressing assumptions?

4.2. Retextualizer

Research

[Section 4.2. Summary.]

•Retextualizer's work flow: initially, the sentence numbering is toggled off.
•Rextualized version's new signifying structures:
•

New first sentences (essay and paragraphs);
•

New sequences of sentences;
•

New paragraphing.
•Interpretive questions of the reconfigured versions:
•

Different ideas and themes in the new sequences?
•

Intelligible order to the new sequence of sentences?
•

New paragraphs parallel the original paragraphing?
•

New configurations highlight intertextuality?

4.2.1. Retextualizing for Research: Work Flow

Instructions for operating Retextualizer are presented on the 'Souls' essay page and are placed towards the bottom of the page. For more detailed instructions visit my Digital Humanities Projects page or go to the first appendix below (Section 7.1.).

As a general interpretive strategy I use Retextualizer with the sentence numbering toggled off. In this way I can approach the new arrangement without necessarily knowing how similar or different are the new sequences when compared with the original order.

4.2.2. New Signifying Structures

Examine the new configuration of sentences, singly or as groups.

First sentence of the first paragraph: perhaps we can consider this to be the essay's thesis statement.

First sentence of each subsequent paragraph: perhaps we can consider this to be the paragraph's topical sentence.

Choose a sentence of interest, whether the first in a paragraph or not, and follow the trail of subsequent sentences.

Groups of sentences separated from other groupings are paragraphs. Assume that the paragraphs express a coherent idea or theme.

4.2.3. Interpretive Questions

Ask interpretive questions that emerge from the new structures created via Retextualizer:

Do aspects of the received theme(s) recur in the rearranged text? (Phrased differently, does an intelligible new arrangement reproduce the same themes as the original arrangement?)

Is there a "logical" or intelligible order to the new sequence of sentences?

Do new themes present themselves as we read the reconfigured sentences. If no new themes arise, what do we make of this? (For example, is the essay so focused that new themes will be harder to decipher?)

Are there jarring juxtapositions of ideas or imagery within the new arrangements of sentences?

Do the new paragraphs convey themes or ideas that parallel the original paragraphing? Or perhaps the new groups offer new themes and ideas?

If any new paragraph is not coherent as a whole, then how few sentences represent an intelligible sequence? How are we to understand this?

Do the new configurations highlight intertextual dimensions of a text by making, or revealing, allusions to other works or ideas by Du Bois himself or by others?

4.2.4. Shared Tool

Importantly, what makes Retextualizer a tool for implementing Gilroy's Black Atlantic concept is that others can use it freely online to research the available set of Du Bois's essays and to reach their own conclusions. Of course, others may disagree with my understanding of the retextualized essays and their themes. This is all part of the ongoing dialogue at the heart of interpretation.

SECTION 5: The "Souls" Essay Retextualized

Retextualized

Work Flow

Interpreting

SECTION 5: The "Souls" Essay Retextualized

5.1. The "Souls"

Essay (SBFI)

[Section 5.1. Summary.]

•The SBFI is Du Bois's self reflection on the book Souls.
•He expresses his concerns over the supposed neutrality of conventional research methods, which have marginalized African experiences of oppression and injustice.
•The essay prefigures his later, explicit criticisms of mainstream research.

5.1.1. Background to the SBFI

An editor of the periodical The Independent asks Du Bois to write a reflection piece on his book, The Souls of Black Folk (Phillips 1904). The editor also asks several other authors to write self-reviews of their respective books. The pieces are published together in a 1904 issue of the periodical.
[Note —More Details Relevant to The Independent, 1904]

Camillus Phillips, Associate Editor of the periodical The Independent, writes a letter to Du Bois in April 1904, requesting a self-review of The Souls of Black Folk (Phillips 1904). Phillips indicates that the author Andrew Lang previously has written that authors should review their own books (Lang 1903). I could not find a reply from Du Bois in the Credo repository. His response seems to be the essay that is published in the periodical.

The Independent of 17 November 1904 contains a section entitled "Every Man His Own Reviewer"; it presents the self-reflections of the following authors and their works: Andrew Lang, "The Valet's Tragedy" (p.1148); Thomas Dixon, Jr., "The One Woman" (p.1149); Upton Sinclair, "Manassas" (pp.1149-1151); Gelett Burgess, "More Goops" (p.1151); W.E. Burghardt DuBois, "The Souls of Black Folk" (p.1152); and W.J. Ghent, "Mass and Class" (pp.1152-1153).

[End of Note .]

The 'Souls' essay has become increasingly a part of our understanding of Souls the book (e.g., Shaw 2013: p.203n.7; B.H. Edwards 2007: p.viii). The essay highlights race consciousness and a more Africana-focused Du Bois, especially the tensions in his thinking on the supposed neutrality of conventional research methods, methods which deny and marginalize the experiences and insights of persons of color (Rampersad 1996: pp.300-301; Rath 1997; Zamir 1995: pp.97-98). The SBFI also apparently conveys Du Bois's response to criticisms raised against the book, as several scholars argue (Blight & Gooding-Williams 1997: p.254; Griffin 2003: p.32).

5.1.2. The Significance of the 'Souls' Essay

Du Bois's tone in the SBFI suggests ambivalence. He writes as an advocate of conventional research and its support for neutral analysis, but he also indicates that the conventions are not adequate to convey the experiences of oppression, which he also feels compelled to express. The White readers of Souls need to know about what he is writing about in the book.

One who is born with a cause is pre-destined to a certain narrowness of view, and at the same time to some clearness of vision within his limits with which the world often finds it well to reckon. My book has many of the defects and some of the advantages of this situation. Because I am a negro [sic] I lose something of that breadth of view which the more cosmopolitan races have, and with this goes an intensity of feeling and conviction which both wins and repels sympathy, and now enlightens, now puzzles. [SBFI 1904: ¶ 1]

Du Bois continues two paragraphs later:

[....] Through all the book runs a personal and intimate tone of self-revelation. In each essay l sought to speak from within—to depict a world as we see it who dwell therein. In thus giving up the usual impersonal and judicial attitude of the traditional author I have lost in authority but gained in vividness. The reader will, I am sure, feel in reading my words peculiar warrant for setting his judgment against mine, but at the same time some revelation of how the world looks to me cannot easily escape him. [SBFI 1904: ¶ 3]

Du Bois here assumes the dichotomies of subjective and objective, and of knower and known. He writes that he is aware that his words in Souls will be less persuasive by conventional standards. Du Bois expresses his embodiment as conveyed in passages about the blood of his fathers and about the book's style as "tropical—African." [¶ 5]

The tensions that Du Bois highlights in the SBFI are an early marker for the criticisms of conventional research that he writes about later (e.g., MEPF 1944). Conventional research is not able to convey the experiences of African Americans. That is, one can learn about and know about Africana communities, but the conventional language of social research cannot adequately express and the research of the time does not adequately address, the experiences of Blacks in the USA.

5.2.
The SBFI
as a
Case Study

[Section 5.2. Summary.]

•Presented below are various examples resulting from the application of Retextualizer on Du Bois's 'Souls' essay, including:
•

New first sentences;
•

New paragraph groupings;
•

Interpretive questions.

In this section I will examine how one can use Retextualizer in the CAIA of texts. In particular, I will discuss the results of the application of Retextualizer to the "Souls" essay.

5.2.1. First Sentences

What difference, if any, would a new first sentence make for our understanding of the SBFI? Recall the first sentence of the original: "One who is born with a cause is pre-destined to a certain narrowness of view, and at the same time to some clearness of vision within his limits with which the world often finds it well to reckon." Consider these reconfigurations.

First sentences of first paragraphs:

•Sentence 9 (as the only sentence in the paragraph): "Through all the book runs a personal and intimate tone of self-revelation."

•Sentence 20 (as the only sentence in the paragraph): "In its larger aspects the style is tropical—African."

•Sentence 13 as the first sentence in the paragraph, then sentence 20 as the last sentence in the paragraph: "This is not saying that the style and workmanship of the book make its meaning altogether clear." "In its larger aspects the style is tropical—African."

•Sentence 16 as the first sentence in a paragraph: "It is difficult, strangely difficult, to translate the finer feelings of men into words."

How do we understand these examples from the SBFI?

Obviously one does not need to use computer assisted interpretation to focus on new first sentences. One could simply start with sentence 2 and then proceed through each sentence of the original in sequence asking what difference or similarity this new first sentence would make. Where computer-assisted interpretation shines is in facilitating new arrangements, new combinations of sentences, thereby avoiding the use of slips of paper with one sentence on each and then rearranging the slips of paper.

5.2.2. Generating Interpretive Questions

Using the Retextualizer allows us to generate questions about topics and themes to investigate further. As an example of the SBFI rearranged, consider the start of a paragraph: s16, then s2: "It is difficult, strangely difficult, to translate the finer feelings of men into words." "My book has many of the defects and some of the advantages of this situation." Several questions can be posed:

Does s2 placed after s16 convey something in line with the essay's theme or something different?

In the original version, the first sentence says that a person born with a cause has a narrow but clear vision. Sentence 2 suggests that this vision has both positive and negative consequences for the book Souls. Accordingly, does placing s2 after s16 alter, or even undermine, Du Bois's idea of a person born with a cause?

5.2.3. Provocative New Rearrangements

Retextualizing an essay results in creating new sentence arrangements that the original does not contain. For example, consider the case of s20 [style is "tropical—African"] preceding s17 [the thing seems uncouth and inchoate], Several questions emerge:

Who might consider a tropical style of writing as uncouth?

Do these two juxtaposed sentences convey what some deem to be a theme of the SBFI (namely, that Du Bois proudly proclaims his African heritage)?

Du Bois in the essay does not consider that the African style is uncouth. The juxtaposed sentences 20 and 17 exemplify how randomizing text can raise issues about the themes and non-themes of a work.

5.2.4. New Paragraph Groupings

Retextualization can create new paragraph groupings. As an example, here is a second paragraph from a recent use of the application. The sentences are arrayed as a vertical list:

•s16 "It is difficult, strangely difficult, to translate the finer feelings of men into words."

•s14 "A clear central message it has conveyed to most readers, I think, but around this center there has lain a penumbra of vagueness and half-veiled allusion which has made these and others especially impatient."

•s10 "In each essay I sought to speak from within—to depict a world as we see it who dwell therein."

•s17 "The Thing itself sits clear before you; but when you have dressed it out in periods it seems fearfully uncouth and inchoate."

•s07 "All this leads to rather abrupt transitions of style, tone and viewpoint and, too, without doubt, to a distinct sense of incompleteness and sketchiness."

How might we interpret this paragraph?

Our interpretation of the above paragraph grouping can follow the sequences of sentences. Assume that the topical sentence is s16; then consider s14: why does vagueness exist?

Is it because it is difficult to put feelings into words as s16 indicates.

Or is it because the world of African Americans is unknown to White Americans (here and also recall the third sentence, s10)?

Or consider the last sentence, s7 in relation to s16, which is the first sentence of the paragraph. Why might the book as a whole be deemed incomplete and sketchy? (Sentence 16 indicates that there are difficulties in translating feelings.

Also, because the book covers the lives of African Americans, vagueness may exist because the dwellers behind the veil of the color line experience society differently than Whites.

5.2.5. Other[s's] Interpretations?

Consider retextualized sequences as to whether they retain, or not, a theme deemed to be in the original. Examine the following reconfiguration of a four-sentence paragraph.

•s12 "The reader will, I am sure, feel in reading my words peculiar warrant for setting his judgment against mine, but at the same time some revelation of how the world looks to me cannot easily escape him."

•s22 "The blood of my fathers spoke through me and cast off the English restraint of my training and surroundings."

•s20 "In its larger aspects the style is tropical—African."

•s02 "My book has many of the defects and some of the advantages of this situation."

Several possible questions arise.

Assuming s12 is the topical sentence, do the sentences reconfigured into a new paragraph maintain the idea that some readers of Souls will judge the book negatively?

Might we interpret s02 in light of s20 (and s22), asking if Du Bois holds that a tropical style has both positive and negative dimensions?

Does s02 provide a relevant conclusion to the newly configured paragraph? (Do the other sentences from this retextualized paragraph provide a relevant conclusion?)

What other questions might we pose? What other interpretations might our fellow readers make?

In short, what stands out in the retextualized version of the essay? What grabs the attention of the reader? Is it isolated sentences as an entire paragraph? Is it the topical (first) sentences of a paragraph? Or perhaps it is the the new arrangements of sentences? Taken as a whole, what stands out in the retextualization might be the philosophical insights or the rhetorical persuasiveness of the new arrangement, or perhaps the powerful imagery conveyed in the new arrangement.

SECTION 6: In Closing

SECTION 6: In Closing

6.1. Reprise
and
Future Projects

[Section 6.1. Summary.]

•Du Bois's SBFI foreshadows current DH debates: Can DH retain a humanities focus when using empirically based tools?
•Retextualizer seeks to address current DH debates.
•

It translates Gilroy's Black Atlantic concept of the varied routes to the production of culture and meaning into algorithmic displacement.
•

It is a mediating tool that provides the conditions for humanistic studies via extending our scope of inquiry.

In his essay, 'The Souls of Black Folk', Du Bois expresses the tension over whether conventional Western research methods permit us to study the subjective aspects of Africana peoples. Coding Paul Gilroy's Black Atlantic concept as a digital humanities application represents my attempt to translate the concept's emphasis on Africana experiences of displacement into a tool of interpretation by means of textual displacement.

The digital humanities have become a major set of useful approaches to the study of human artifacts. Nevertheless, tensions within the interdisciplinary field of DH persist: can DH retain the humanities focus and its humanistic styles of inquiry? Interestingly, the Du Bois of the SBFI foreshadows in a general way such current DH debates.

My goal with Retextualizer is to construct a mediating tool that helps to provide the conditions for humanistic inquiry, especially the close-reading techniques. Retextualizer offers a way to rearrange the sentences of a text so as to create potentially new insights into the SBFI and to generate potentially new questions. By such reconfigurations Retextualizer preserves a humanistic focus as well as the Black Atlantic idea of multiple routes to the production of meaning.

While working on this presentation, my use of Retextualizer has prompted me to formulate a research topic on Du Bois's idea of embodiment and knowledge. In the 'Souls' essay he concentrates on the subjective aspects of reality, specifically the reality experienced by Blacks in America. He expresses such experiences in terms evocative of the body and its components. For example, he writes of the blood of his fathers, of possessing a clearness of vision, and of the feelings of "men". Although he does not explicitly mention the body as a whole or embodiment per se, such concepts emerge to me in a general way from contemplating the import of the bodily aspects of the SBFI essay. Pondering the different sentence reconfigurations leads me to inquire:

What are the various indicators of embodiment that Du Bois uses in his many texts?

Conversely, what are the indicators of bodily detachment or disembodiment?

Does Du Bois's use or support of bodily metaphors or embodiment change over time or in different works?

In light of the previous questions, how are we to understand his idea of "double consciousness"?

Also, why does Du Bois not mention explicitly the idea of "double consciousness" in the 'Souls' essay? Or does he imply it without specifically naming it?

More ideas, themes, and questions can occur, of course. What might they be?

I have used DH tools, such as keyword-in-context and collation analysis, in previous research projects (Williams 2009 & 2016). I anticipate that their usefulness to me and others will continue, albeit with our recognition of the scope and limitations of digital humanities.

I outline the caveats and limitations to Retextualizer in the next, and last, subsection of the presentation.

6.2. Caveats and Limitations

[Section 6.2. Summary.]

•Retextualizer is now only essay-specific.
•It is intra-textually focused on one Du Boisian work at a time (selected from a small set of available essays).
•The sentence is the unit of meaning.
•Computer-generated randomization includes human coding input.
•DH is not a fully neutral way to conduct research.
•To supplement the reductivist facets of DH, we should use multiple methods.

I will briefly list several theoretical and practical concerns pertinent to Retextualizer and to CAIA, Computer Assisted Interpretation and Analysis.

6.2.1. Caveats to Retextualizer

Essay-specific: Each of the six Retextualizer webpages is hard-coded to one particular short essay by Du Bois. At this point in the application's development there is no way to upload texts chosen by the user.

Intra-textually focused: Related to the previous limitation, the focus on one essay alone limits the potential for novel juxtapositions and new interpretations when multiple works are combined into one corpus. The intertexts and paratexts relevant to a more comprehensively interpreted Du Bois cannot be examined in conjunction with the essay being retextualized.

Assumed unit of meaning: The sentence is the basic unit on which Retextualizer operates. Phrases or clauses, which themselves also convey meaning—by supplementing, contradicting, or changing the import of a sentence or paragraph—are not textually displaced or recombined.

Computer-generated random numbers: The random numbers created via computers do not happen purely by non-human chance. Visit Appendix 7.2. "Coding Retextualizer" in which I mention the computer implementation of randomizing processes.

6.2.2. Caveats to Algorithmic Interpretation

General Concerns: The digital humanities, because of the digital aspects of the processes and the material on which computational tools and techniques operate, possess the strengths and weaknesses of those tools. In a positive sense, we can do operations on artifacts either impossible to perform before computer devices, or else performed more efficiently via such devices. Nonetheless, as mentioned in Section 3.3., such technologies mediate and influence how we interpret. DH is not a fully neutral way to conduct research.

Mindful of Reductivism: DH brings with it the problematic of reductivism. For example, we make choices when we code, such as choosing which unit(s) of meaning to use. I coded Retextualizer to concentrate on sentences. This focus on a particular unit thereby limits the scope of meanings that can be examined via the application itself. Hopefully, by expressing the coding choices that we make, we can be more aware that DH retains the humans at the center of the process, both as agents and as objects of the research processes. Again, DH is not a fully neutral way to conduct research.

As with all tools, machinic or digital, understanding them is vital. Methodologies, technologies, and techniques help us in our research. But they also subtly enframe research, and so we should not think that their (limited) scope of inquiry is the only scope possible or permissible.

— FINIS —

SECTION 7: Appendices

SECTION 7: Appendices

7.1. Operating Retextualizer

7.1.1. Layout of the Web Page

After the Retextualizer web page initially loads, the text of the work being altered is presented in two columns. The right column displays the original text as published or distributed. The original also can be hidden and later redisplayed. Please read the instructions below. The left column initially presents the primary source in a random arrangement, with the sentences and breaks between paragraphs presented in the sequence generated by a computer-based randomization process. The left column also can display the primary source in reverse order by sentence, with the last sentence rendered first and the first sentence last. The next instructions indicate how to reverse the original order of the piece.

7.1.2. Operations on the Text

Retextualizer offers six functions that allow the user to work with, to view, and/or to transform the work: randomizing the original sentence order; reversing the original sentence order; toggling the sentence numbers on or off; copying the randomized or reversed sentences as one unit to the clipboard; viewing all copied units of randomized and reversed sentences in a popup window; and toggling the display of the original work.

Randomization: The original work is randomized by sentence upon loading the web page. This can be randomized again by pressing the "R" key or by clicking the RANDOMIZE button (link) located at the top of the page.

A Note on Paragraphs: The original work's paragraphs, typically indented, are delineated herein by breaks between paragraphs. The frequency and placement of such breaks are randomly generated. For more information, please read Section 7.2., "Coding Retextualizer".

Reverse Order/Backwards: After the web page is loaded, one may view the original piece in a reverse sequence within the left column, which thereby will replace the randomized version. Tap the "B" key or click the BACKWARDS button (link) located at the top of the page.

Sentence Numbers: Once the web page is loaded sentence numbers are not initially displayed. The numbers can be displayed for all textual variants in both columns by tapping the "N" key or by clicking the NUMBERS button (link) found at the top of the page.

Copy to the Clipboard: If you wish to retain the randomized or reversed text for use in other applications, then press the "C" key or click the COPY button (link) at the top of the page. Also, clicking anywhere on the left column will perform the copy function. Afterwards, you can proceed to your application and paste the clipboard contents. Note that the copy function does not copy the original text.

Error Message When Copying: If this function does not work, then an error message will appear: "Copying to the clipboard was NOT successful. Please try again." Note, however: I have observed that sometimes this error message appears even though the copying was performed correctly. One can ascertain copying success by using the VIEW function (q.v.), which will indicate via a displayed message whether there is or is not copied text to be viewed. A further note: Based on personal experience, the copying and viewing functions vary by my mobile devices. Those functions work on my computer and Android tablet but unfortunately, not on my Android smartphone (for some unknown reason).

View All Copied Text: Each time the randomized or reversed text is copied that unit of sentences is accumulated with any other previous units. All instances of copied text can be viewed in another window by tapping the "V" key or by clicking the VIEW button (link) situated at the top of the page. By so doing a popup window will open immediately. Once you leave that new window it is designed to close automatically.

Toggle the Display of the Original Work: One can hide the primary source from view by pressing the "O" key or tapping the ORIGINAL button positioned at the top of the page. The left column, with its contents, will now widen. Invoking the original function again will return to the two-column display—the primary source will be shown next to the reversed/randomized version.

7.1.3. Keyboard Shortcuts

As the instructions indicate, one can access the Retextualizer operations by both buttons and their keyboard equivalents. The small golden bar that appears above a letter in the button identifies its corresponding key.

7.2. Coding Retextualizer

7.2.1. The Basic Element for Retextualizing

The sentence is the basic semantic element used by Retextualizer. By convention, certain punctuation marks delineate the external boundaries of a sentence: e.g., full stops, as well as question and exclamation marks.

Similarly, other marks are contained within a single sentence, including commas, em dashes, colons, and semicolons. Du Bois, as we know, sometimes wrote long and complex sentences that involved various forms of punctuation. Indeed, his "Individual and Social Conscience" presents several long sentences, typically incorporating numerous commas and semicolons—and in one case, four lines of poetry (IASC 1905). As the application unfolds upon loading the web page, each sentence of the original essay is assigned sequentially as a separate text string within an array. Paragraph breaks are also assigned to the array in the order in which they appear in the original work.

7.2.2. Randomizing Process (Left Column)

A set of (pseudo-)random numbers are generated. Each number corresponds to a unique sentence in Du Bois's essay. Sentences are then displayed on screen following the list of randomized numbers. The essay's paragraphs are not indented as in the original, but are indicated on screen by breaks between paragraphs. Such paragraph breaks are randomly inserted according to a parameter chosen by me. This parameter can only be modified within the code itself. Thus, the number of paragraph breaks may be more or less frequent than in the original. The placement of the paragraph breaks, moreover, will vary randomly across the text rendered on screen.

Caveat: The randomizing functions of the Javascript programming language is technically pseudo-random: the ways to derive a seed number are programmed into the Javascript routine by the creators of the rendering engine for the browser. The seed number can be the number of seconds elapsed since a particular date and year—which if known could lead to the reproduction of a supposedly random sequence. Nonetheless, such a randomizing process offers a practical way to rearrange the sentences of a text for (re)interpretive purposes.

7.2.3. Formatting Aspects

The formatting of the original work is retained in a minimal way. Bold and italicized words are displayed as such on screen. The bold and italicized text copied to the clipboard will be designated by paired tags (respectively, <b></b> or <i></i>), when present in the original piece. As mentioned above, the essay's paragraphs are not indented as in the original, but are indicated by breaks between paragraphs.

7.3.
The SBFI
Retextualized:
Cases

This subsection contains two examples of Du Bois's 'The Souls of Black Folk' essay (SBFI 1904) that have been retextualized. Blank lines delimit paragraphs. Toggle the sentence numbers on and off (or tap within the text below).

7.3.1. Randomized Version of W.E.B. Du Bois, 'The Souls of Black Folk' [The Independent, 1904]

This needs no apology.

The resulting accomplishment is a matter of taste. Nevertheless, as the feeling is deep the greater the impelling force to seek to express it. How far this fault is in me and how far it is in the nature of the message I am not sure. And here the feeling was deep.

On the other hand, there is a unity in the book, not simply the general unity of the larger topic, but a unity of purpose in the distinctively subjective note that runs in each essay. In thus giving up the usual impersonal and judicial attitude of the traditional author I have lost in authority but gained in vividness. The reader will, I am sure, feel in reading my words peculiar warrant for setting his judgment against mine, but at the same time some revelation of how the world looks to me cannot easily escape him. There are bits of history and biography, some description of scenes and persons, something of controversy and criticism, some statistics and a bit of story-telling.

This is not saying that the style and workmanship of the book make its meaning altogether clear.

The Souls of Black Folk is a series of fourteen essays written under various circumstances and for different purposes during a period of seven years. Sometimes I think very well of it and sometimes I do not. In each essay I sought to speak from within—to depict a world as we see it who dwell therein. It has, therefore, considerable, perhaps too great, diversity. All this leads to rather abrupt transitions of style, tone and viewpoint and, too, without doubt, to a distinct sense of incompleteness and sketchiness. One who is born with a cause is pre-destined to a certain narrowness of view, and at the same time to some clearness of vision within his limits with which the world often finds it well to reckon. It is difficult, strangely difficult, to translate the finer feelings of men into words. In its larger aspects the style is tropical—African. A clear central message it has conveyed to most readers, I think, but around this center there has lain a penumbra of vagueness and half-veiled allusion which has made these and others especially impatient. The blood of my fathers spoke through me and cast off the English restraint of my training and surroundings. My book has many of the defects and some of the advantages of this situation. The Thing itself sits clear before you; but when you have dressed it out in periods it seems fearfully uncouth and inchoate. Because I am a negro [sic] I lose something of that breadth of view which the more cosmopolitan races have, and with this goes an intensity of feeling and conviction which both wins and repels sympathy, and now enlightens, now puzzles. Through all the book runs a personal and intimate tone of self-revelation.
[Randomized text ends.]

7.3.1. Randomized Version of W.E.B. Du Bois, 'The Souls of Black Folk' [The Independent, 1904]

[s21] This needs no apology.

[s23] The resulting accomplishment is a matter of taste. [s18] Nevertheless, as the feeling is deep the greater the impelling force to seek to express it. [s15] How far this fault is in me and how far it is in the nature of the message I am not sure. [s19] And here the feeling was deep.

[s8] On the other hand, there is a unity in the book, not simply the general unity of the larger topic, but a unity of purpose in the distinctively subjective note that runs in each essay. [s11] In thus giving up the usual impersonal and judicial attitude of the traditional author I have lost in authority but gained in vividness. [s12] The reader will, I am sure, feel in reading my words peculiar warrant for setting his judgment against mine, but at the same time some revelation of how the world looks to me cannot easily escape him. [s6] There are bits of history and biography, some description of scenes and persons, something of controversy and criticism, some statistics and a bit of story-telling.

[s13] This is not saying that the style and workmanship of the book make its meaning altogether clear.

[s4] The Souls of Black Folk is a series of fourteen essays written under various circumstances and for different purposes during a period of seven years. [s24] Sometimes I think very well of it and sometimes I do not. [s10] In each essay I sought to speak from within—to depict a world as we see it who dwell therein. [s5] It has, therefore, considerable, perhaps too great, diversity. [s7] All this leads to rather abrupt transitions of style, tone and viewpoint and, too, without doubt, to a distinct sense of incompleteness and sketchiness. [s1] One who is born with a cause is pre-destined to a certain narrowness of view, and at the same time to some clearness of vision within his limits with which the world often finds it well to reckon. [s16] It is difficult, strangely difficult, to translate the finer feelings of men into words. [s20] In its larger aspects the style is tropical—African. [s14] A clear central message it has conveyed to most readers, I think, but around this center there has lain a penumbra of vagueness and half-veiled allusion which has made these and others especially impatient. [s22] The blood of my fathers spoke through me and cast off the English restraint of my training and surroundings. [s2] My book has many of the defects and some of the advantages of this situation. [s17] The Thing itself sits clear before you; but when you have dressed it out in periods it seems fearfully uncouth and inchoate. [s3] Because I am a negro [sic] I lose something of that breadth of view which the more cosmopolitan races have, and with this goes an intensity of feeling and conviction which both wins and repels sympathy, and now enlightens, now puzzles. [s9] Through all the book runs a personal and intimate tone of self-revelation.
[Randomized text ends.]

Click to toggle the sentence numbers on and off, or else tap the retextualized SBFI text below.

7.3.2. Randomized Version of W.E.B. Du Bois, 'The Souls of Black Folk' [The Independent, 1904]

In each essay I sought to speak from within—to depict a world as we see it who dwell therein. My book has many of the defects and some of the advantages of this situation.

The blood of my fathers spoke through me and cast off the English restraint of my training and surroundings. This needs no apology. The Thing itself sits clear before you; but when you have dressed it out in periods it seems fearfully uncouth and inchoate. Because I am a negro [sic] I lose something of that breadth of view which the more cosmopolitan races have, and with this goes an intensity of feeling and conviction which both wins and repels sympathy, and now enlightens, now puzzles. And here the feeling was deep.

How far this fault is in me and how far it is in the nature of the message I am not sure. There are bits of history and biography, some description of scenes and persons, something of controversy and criticism, some statistics and a bit of story-telling. The Souls of Black Folk is a series of fourteen essays written under various circumstances and for different purposes during a period of seven years. The reader will, I am sure, feel in reading my words peculiar warrant for setting his judgment against mine, but at the same time some revelation of how the world looks to me cannot easily escape him.

A clear central message it has conveyed to most readers, I think, but around this center there has lain a penumbra of vagueness and half-veiled allusion which has made these and others especially impatient. One who is born with a cause is pre-destined to a certain narrowness of view, and at the same time to some clearness of vision within his limits with which the world often finds it well to reckon. In thus giving up the usual impersonal and judicial attitude of the traditional author I have lost in authority but gained in vividness. It has, therefore, considerable, perhaps too great, diversity. On the other hand, there is a unity in the book, not simply the general unity of the larger topic, but a unity of purpose in the distinctively subjective note that runs in each essay. It is difficult, strangely difficult, to translate the finer feelings of men into words. Nevertheless, as the feeling is deep the greater the impelling force to seek to express it. Through all the book runs a personal and intimate tone of self-revelation. The resulting accomplishment is a matter of taste. All this leads to rather abrupt transitions of style, tone and viewpoint and, too, without doubt, to a distinct sense of incompleteness and sketchiness. This is not saying that the style and workmanship of the book make its meaning altogether clear.

In its larger aspects the style is tropical—African. Sometimes I think very well of it and sometimes I do not.
[Randomized text ends.]

7.3.2. Randomized Version of W.E.B. Du Bois, 'The Souls of Black Folk' [The Independent, 1904]

[s10] In each essay I sought to speak from within—to depict a world as we see it who dwell therein. [s2] My book has many of the defects and some of the advantages of this situation.

[s22] The blood of my fathers spoke through me and cast off the English restraint of my training and surroundings. [s21] This needs no apology. [s17] The Thing itself sits clear before you; but when you have dressed it out in periods it seems fearfully uncouth and inchoate. [s3] Because I am a negro [sic] I lose something of that breadth of view which the more cosmopolitan races have, and with this goes an intensity of feeling and conviction which both wins and repels sympathy, and now enlightens, now puzzles. [s19] And here the feeling was deep.

[s15] How far this fault is in me and how far it is in the nature of the message I am not sure. [s6] There are bits of history and biography, some description of scenes and persons, something of controversy and criticism, some statistics and a bit of story-telling. [s4] The Souls of Black Folk is a series of fourteen essays written under various circumstances and for different purposes during a period of seven years. [s12] The reader will, I am sure, feel in reading my words peculiar warrant for setting his judgment against mine, but at the same time some revelation of how the world looks to me cannot easily escape him.

[s14] A clear central message it has conveyed to most readers, I think, but around this center there has lain a penumbra of vagueness and half-veiled allusion which has made these and others especially impatient. [s1] One who is born with a cause is pre-destined to a certain narrowness of view, and at the same time to some clearness of vision within his limits with which the world often finds it well to reckon. [s11] In thus giving up the usual impersonal and judicial attitude of the traditional author I have lost in authority but gained in vividness. [s5] It has, therefore, considerable, perhaps too great, diversity. [s8] On the other hand, there is a unity in the book, not simply the general unity of the larger topic, but a unity of purpose in the distinctively subjective note that runs in each essay. [s16] It is difficult, strangely difficult, to translate the finer feelings of men into words. [s18] Nevertheless, as the feeling is deep the greater the impelling force to seek to express it. [s9] Through all the book runs a personal and intimate tone of self-revelation. [s23] The resulting accomplishment is a matter of taste. [s7] All this leads to rather abrupt transitions of style, tone and viewpoint and, too, without doubt, to a distinct sense of incompleteness and sketchiness. [s13] This is not saying that the style and workmanship of the book make its meaning altogether clear.

[s20] In its larger aspects the style is tropical—African. [s24] Sometimes I think very well of it and sometimes I do not.
[Randomized text ends.]

7.4. The SBFI: Original Text

This subsection contains the original version of Du Bois's 'The Souls of Black Folk' essay (SBFI 1904). Blank lines delimit paragraphs. Toggle the sentence numbers on and off (or tap within the text below).

Original Text of W.E.B. Du Bois, 'The Souls of Black Folk' [The Independent, 1904]

One who is born with a cause is pre-destined to a certain narrowness of view, and at the same time to some clearness of vision within his limits with which the world often finds it well to reckon. My book has many of the defects and some of the advantages of this situation. Because I am a negro [sic] I lose something of that breadth of view which the more cosmopolitan races have, and with this goes an intensity of feeling and conviction which both wins and repels sympathy, and now enlightens, now puzzles.

‌‌The Souls of Black Folk‌ is a series of fourteen essays written under various circumstances and for different purposes during a period of seven years. It has, therefore, considerable, perhaps too great, diversity. There are bits of history and biography, some description of scenes and persons, something of controversy and criticism, some statistics and a bit of story-telling. All this leads to rather abrupt transitions of style, tone and viewpoint and, too, without doubt, to a distinct sense of incompleteness and sketchiness.

On the other hand, there is a unity in the book, not simply the general unity of the larger topic, but a unity of purpose in the distinctively subjective note that runs in each essay. Through all the book runs a personal and intimate tone of self-revelation. In each essay I sought to speak from within—to depict a world as we see it who dwell therein. In thus giving up the usual impersonal and judicial attitude of the traditional author I have lost in authority but gained in vividness. The reader will, I am sure, feel in reading my words peculiar warrant for setting his judgment against mine, but at the same time some revelation of how the world looks to me cannot easily escape him.

This is not saying that the style and workmanship of the book make its meaning altogether clear. A clear central message it has conveyed to most readers, I think, but around this center there has lain a penumbra of vagueness and half-veiled allusion which has made these and others especially impatient. How far this fault is in me and how far it is in the nature of the message I am not sure. It is difficult, strangely difficult, to translate the finer feelings of men into words. The Thing itself sits clear before you; but when you have dressed it out in periods it seems fearfully uncouth and inchoate. Nevertheless, as the feeling is deep the greater the impelling force to seek to express it. And here the feeling was deep.

In its larger aspects the style is tropical—African. This needs no apology. The blood of my fathers spoke through me and cast off the English restraint of my training and surroundings. The resulting accomplishment is a matter of taste. Sometimes I think very well of it and sometimes I do not.
[Original text ends.]

Original Text of W.E.B. Du Bois, 'The Souls of Black Folk' [The Independent, 1904]

[s1] One who is born with a cause is pre-destined to a certain narrowness of view, and at the same time to some clearness of vision within his limits with which the world often finds it well to reckon. [s2] My book has many of the defects and some of the advantages of this situation. [s3] Because I am a negro [sic] I lose something of that breadth of view which the more cosmopolitan races have, and with this goes an intensity of feeling and conviction which both wins and repels sympathy, and now enlightens, now puzzles.

[s4] ‌‌The Souls of Black Folk‌ is a series of fourteen essays written under various circumstances and for different purposes during a period of seven years. [s5] It has, therefore, considerable, perhaps too great, diversity. [s6] There are bits of history and biography, some description of scenes and persons, something of controversy and criticism, some statistics and a bit of story-telling. [s7] All this leads to rather abrupt transitions of style, tone and viewpoint and, too, without doubt, to a distinct sense of incompleteness and sketchiness.

[s8] On the other hand, there is a unity in the book, not simply the general unity of the larger topic, but a unity of purpose in the distinctively subjective note that runs in each essay. [s9] Through all the book runs a personal and intimate tone of self-revelation. [s10] In each essay I sought to speak from within—to depict a world as we see it who dwell therein. [s11] In thus giving up the usual impersonal and judicial attitude of the traditional author I have lost in authority but gained in vividness. [s12] The reader will, I am sure, feel in reading my words peculiar warrant for setting his judgment against mine, but at the same time some revelation of how the world looks to me cannot easily escape him.

[s13] This is not saying that the style and workmanship of the book make its meaning altogether clear. [s14] A clear central message it has conveyed to most readers, I think, but around this center there has lain a penumbra of vagueness and half-veiled allusion which has made these and others especially impatient. [s15] How far this fault is in me and how far it is in the nature of the message I am not sure. [s16] It is difficult, strangely difficult, to translate the finer feelings of men into words. [s17] The Thing itself sits clear before you; but when you have dressed it out in periods it seems fearfully uncouth and inchoate. [s18] Nevertheless, as the feeling is deep the greater the impelling force to seek to express it. [s19] And here the feeling was deep.

[s20] In its larger aspects the style is tropical—African. [s22] This needs no apology. [s22] The blood of my fathers spoke through me and cast off the English restraint of my training and surroundings. [s23] The resulting accomplishment is a matter of taste. [s24] Sometimes I think very well of it and sometimes I do not.
[Original text ends.]

SECTION 8: Works Cited and Suggested Resources

SECTION 8: Works Cited and Suggested Resources

8.1. Works Cited in the Presentation

Note: The in-text citations to Du Bois's works include an abbreviated title and year of publication. Below, his works are alphabetized by their abbreviated titles.

Allen, Graham. 2000. Intertextuality. [The New Critical Idiom.] London: Routledge.

Bailey, Moya Z. 2011. "All the Digital Humanists Are White, All the Nerds Are Men, but Some of Us Are Brave." Journal of Digital Humanities, 1:1 (Winter). Online at JDH.

Blight, David W. & Robert Gooding-Williams (Eds.). 1997. "Editors' Introduction". Pp.1-30 in Du Bois, W.E.B., The Souls of Black Folk. Bedford Series in History and Culture. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's.

Burroughs, William S. 1963. "The Cut Up Method." Pp.345-348 in Leroi Jones [Amiri Baraka], (Ed.), The Moderns: An Anthology of New Writing in America. NY: Corinth Books. Anthology online at Archive.org. [Start page 345].

Cohen, Matt. 2006. "Trangenic Deformation: Literary Translation and the Digital Archive." Walt Whitman Archive [Website]. Online.

Council of Economic Advisers. 2015. "Mapping the Digital Divide." Council of Economic Advisers Issue Brief, July 2015. URL: obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/wh_digital_divide_issue_brief.pdf.

Drucker, Johanna. 2012a. "Humanities Theory and Digital Scholarship." In Matthew K. Gold & Lauren F. Klein (Eds.),Debates in the Digital Humanities, 2012 Ed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. URL: http://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/debates/text/34

Drucker, Johanna. 2012b. "Representation and the Digital Environment: Essential Challenges for Humanists." Posted at the University of Minnesota Press blog, 16 May 2012. URL: www.uminnpressblog.com/2012/05/representation-and-digital-environment.html

Du Bois, W.E.B.

ATTC. 1906. "Address to the Country." P.1 in Anonymous, "The Second Annual Meeting of the Niagara Meeting At Harper's Ferry, West Virginia", The Broad Ax [Chicago, IL], Vol. XI, No. 44 (August 25, 1906). URL: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84024055/1906-08-25/ed-1/seq-1/.

IASC. 1905. "The Individual and Social Conscience" [Originally Untitled]. Pp.53-55 in Religious Education Association, The Aims of Religious Education. The Proceedings of the Third Annual Convention ..., 1905. Chicago: Executive Office of the R.E.A. URL: www.archive.org/details/proceedingsofann03reliuoft [Alternate URL: www.webdubois.org/dbIASC.html].

IFRE. 1949. "The Nature of Intellectual Freedom." P.78 in Gillmor, Daniel S. (Ed.), Speaking of Peace. New York: National Council of Arts, Sciences and Professions, 1949. Online: Credo repository of the Special Collections and University Archives, W.E.B. Du Bois Library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

MEPF. 1944. "My Evolving Program for Negro Freedom." Pp.31-70 in Rayford W. Logan (Ed.), What the Negro Wants. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. URL: www.webdubois.org/dbMyEvolvingPrgm.html

PSOM. 1957. "Postscript" (pp.315-316) to Du Bois, The Ordeal of Mansart. NY: Mainstream Publishers. [The book is accessible at the HathiTrust Digital Library: catalog page.]

SBF. 1903. The Souls of Black Folk. Chicago: A.C. McClurg. URL: www.webdubois.org/wdb-souls.html.

SBFI. 1904."The Souls of Black Folk". The Independent, Vol.57, No.2920 (17 November 1904): p.1152. URL: www.webdubois.org/dbSouls-1904Essay.html.

SSTA. 1954. "Apologia." Pp.327-329 in Du Bois, The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870. NY: The Social Science Press, 1954. [The book is accessible at the HathiTrust Digital Library: catalog page.]

Edwards, Brent Hayes (Ed.). 2007. "Introduction." In W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk. Ed. by Brent Hayes Edwards. [Oxford World Classics]. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Gallon, Kim. 2016. "Making a Case for the Black Digital Humanities." In Matthew K. Gold & Lauren F. Klein (Eds.), Debates in the Digital Humanities, 2016 Ed.. Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press. URL: http://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/debates/text/55

Griffin, Erica L. (Compiler). 2003. "Reviews of The Souls of Black Folk." Pp.18-33 in Dolan Hubbard (Ed.), The Souls of Black Folk One Hundred Years Later. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press.

Hoover, David L. 2005. "Hot-Air Textuality: Literature after Jerome McGann." TEXT Technology, 14:2. Online (PDF).

Hoover, David L. 2007. "The End of the Irrelevant Text: Electronic Texts, Linguistics, and Literary Theory." Digital Humanities Quarterly, 1:2. Online.

Hopkins, David. 2004. Dada and Surrealism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Kim, Dorothy and Jesse Stommel (Eds.). N.D. Disrupting the Digital Humanities. URL: www.disruptingdh.com/position-papers/

Kochhar-Lindgren, Kanta, David Schneiderman, & Tom Denlinger (Eds.). 2009. The Exquisite Corpse: Chance and Collaboration in Surrealism's Parlor Game. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

Koh, Adeline. 2012. "Addressing Archival Silence on 19th Century Colonialism - Part 1: The Power of the Archive". Posted 4 March 2012. Blog post.

Lang, Andrew. 1903. "Every Man His Own Reviewer." The Independent, vol. LV, no. 2865 (29 October 1903): 2558-2560. URL: https://books.google.com/books?id=-i4PAQAAIAAJ....

Liu, Allan. 2013. "The Meaning of the Digital Humanities." PMLA: Proceedings of the Modern Language Association, 128:2; pp.409-423. URL: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/5gc857tw.

McGann, Jerome and Lisa Samuels. 1999. "Deformance and Interpretation," New Literary History, 30:1 (Winter): 25-56.

Nowviskie, Bethany. 2016. "On the Origin of 'Hack' and 'Yack.'" In Matthew K. Gold & Lauren F. Klein (Eds.), Debates in the Digital Humanities, 2016 Ed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. URL: http://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/debates/text/58.

Phillips, Camillus. 1904. "Letter from the Independent to W. E. B. Du Bois, April 30, 1904." W.E.B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries. URL: http://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b003-i073.

Raine, Lee. 2016. "Digital Divides 2016." Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech. URL: www.pewinternet.org/2016/07/14/digital-divides-2016/.

Rampersad, Arnold. 1996. "Afterword: W.E.B. Du Bois, Race, and the Making of American Studies." In Bell, Bernard W., Emily R. Grosholz & James B. Stewart (Eds.), W.E.B. Du Bois on Race and Culture. NY: Routledge.

Ramsay, Stephen. 2011. Reading Machines: Toward an Algorithmic Criticism. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Rath, Richard Cullen. 1997. "Echo and Narcissus: The Afrocentric Pragmatism of W.E.B. Du Bois." Journal of American History, 84:2 (September): 461-495.

Risam, Roopika. 2015a. "On Disruption, Race, and the Digital Humanities." Disrupting the Digital Humanities, Digital Edition. URL: www.disruptingdh.com/on-disruption-race-and-the-digital-humanities.

Sample, Mark. 2012. "Notes towards a Deformed Humanities." Samplereality [Blog], (Posted May 2). Online.

Shaw, Stephanie J. 2013. W.E.B. Du Bois and The Souls of Black Folk. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Tzara, Tristan. 1920. "Pour faire un poème dadaïste." Littérature, No.15 (July-August): 18. URL: http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/dada/litterature/15/pages/18.htm. Digital Dada Library Collection, University of Iowa Libraries [site]. [Translation: "How to Make a Dadaist Poem." Online in English].

Williams, Robert W. 2009. "Paradoxes of the South in W.E.B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk." Mississippi Quarterly, 62:1-2 (Winter-Spring): 71-94.

Williams, Robert W. 2016. "The Intertextuality of Du Bois's Idea of Humanity: A Collation Analysis." Paper presented at the 30th Symposium on African American Culture and Philosophy—"Exploring the 'Humanity' in the Digital Humanities." Sponsored by the African American Studies and Research Center, Purdue University. 2 December 2016. [Online].

Zamir, Shamoon. 1995. Dark Voices: W.E.B. Du Bois and American Thought, 1888-1903. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

8.2. Suggested DH Resources

8.2.1. Texts

Gold, Matthew K. & Lauren F. Klein (Eds.). 2016. Debates in the Digital Humanities, 2016 Ed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. URL: http://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/debates?id=2.

Jones, Josh. 2016. "How to Jumpstart Your Creative Process with William S. Burroughs’ Cut-Up Technique." Open Culture [web site]. (18 July 2016). Available online.

Marshall, Colin. 2017. "Download 36 Dadaist Magazines from the The Digital Dada Archive (Plus Other Avant-Garde Books, Leaflets & Ephemera)." Open Culture [web site]. (15 June 2017). Available online.

Meier, Allison. 2016. "W.E.B. Du Bois’s Modernist Data Visualizations of Black Life." Hyperallergic, posted 4 July. URL: https://hyperallergic.com/306559/w-e-b-du-boiss-modernist-data-visualizations-of-black-life/.

Moretti, Franco. 2013. Distant Reading. London: Verso Books.

Price, Kenneth M. and Ray Siemens. 2013-2018. Literary Studies in the Digital Age: An Evolving Anthology. URL: https://dlsanthology.mla.hcommons.org.

Risam, Roopika. 2015b. "Beyond the Margins: Intersectionality and the Digital Humanities." Digital Humanities Quarterly, 9:2. Online at DHQ.

Schreibman, Susan, Ray Siemens, and John Unsworth (Eds.). 2004. A Companion to Digital Humanities. Oxford: Blackwell. URL: http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companion/.

Smith, Martha Nell. 2002. "Computing: What's American Literary Study Got to Do With IT?" American Literature, 74:4; pp.833-857.

Smith, Martha Nell. 2007. "The Human Touch Software of the Highest Order: Revisiting Editing as Interpretation." Textual Cultures: Texts, Contexts, Interpretations, 2:1 (Spring 2007): 1-15.

8.2.2. Websites: Blogs, Centers, and DH Projects

African American History, Culture & Digital Humanities (UMD)
URL: https://aadhum.umd.edu.

African Diaspora PhD
URL: https://africandiasporaphd.com.

Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO)
URL: https://adho.org.

Anna Julia Cooper Center
URL: https://ajccenter.com.

Blackademics
URL: http://blackademics.org.

Black Book Interactive Project
URL: http://bbip.ku.edu.

Black Past: Online Reference Guide to African American History
URL: http://blackpast.org.

Black Press Research Collective
URL: http://blackpressresearchcollective.org.

Black Quotidian: Everyday History in African-American Newspapers
URL: http://blackquotidian.com.

Carolina Digital Humanities (UNC-Chapel Hill)
URL: https://cdh.unc.edu/.

Center for Digital Research in the Humanities (UNL)
URL: https://cdrh.unl.edu.

Center for South Asian and Indian Ocean Studies
URL: https://as.tufts.edu/csaios/digitalHumanities.

Credo: Special Collections & University Archives, W.E.B. Du Bois Library, University of Massachusetts Amherst (Papers of Horace Mann Bond, W.E.B. Du Bois, and others)
URL: http://credo.library.umass.edu/.

Colored Conventions Project: Bringing 19th Century Organizing to Digital Life
URL: www.coloredconventions.org.

DHCommons.org: A Collaboration Hub
URL: http://www.dhcommons.org.

Diaspora Hypertext: Black Femme History and Futures
URL: http://dh.jmjafrx.com/tag/howard-ramsby-ii/.

Digital Colored American Magazine
URL: http://coloredamerican.org/.

Digital Harlem: Everyday Life 1915-1930
URL: http://digitalharlem.org.

Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa
URL: http://digitalhumanities.org.za.

Digital Humanities Initiative
URL: http://www.dhinitiative.org.

Digital Schomburg African American Women Writers of the 19th Century
URL: http://digital.nypl.org/schomburg/writers_aa19/.

DiRT Directory (Digital Humanities Software)
URL: https://www.dirtdirectory.org.

East Asian Digital Humanities Lab
URL: https://guides.library.harvard.edu/EADH.

Frederick Douglass in Britain and Ireland
URL: http://frederickdouglassinbritain.com.

HASTAC: Humanities, Arts, Science, & Technology Alliance & Collaboratory
URL: https://www.hastac.org.

History of Women Philosophers
URL: https://historyofwomenphilosophers.org.

Malcolm X: A Research Site
URL: http://www.brothermalcolm.net.

NINES: Networked Infrastructure for 19th Century Electronic Scholarship
URL: http://www.nines.org.

O Say Can You See: Early Washington, D.C., Law & Family
URL: http://earlywashingtondc.org.

Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Blog
URL: https://recoveryprojectappblog.wordpress.com.

Roy Rosenzweig Center for History & New Media, George Mason University
URL: http://www.rrchnm.org.

TAPoR 3 (Text Analysis Portal for Research)
URL: http://tapor.ca/home.

Voyant tools
URL: https://www.voyant-tools.org.

The Ward: Race and Class in Du Bois' Seventh Ward
URL: http://www.dubois-theward.org.

WWP: Women Writers Project
URL: http://www.wwp.northeastern.edu.

8.2.3. Videos and Podcasts

Algee-Hewitt, Mark. N.D. "Romancing the Novel: Large Scale Text Analysis in the Humanities, Mark Algee-Hewitt." URL: www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ycbOOJDk7c. [YouTube: BYU Humanities (Channel); 60:48; No posted date].

#dariah Teach. 2016. "DH in Practice - Spatial Humanities & Social Justice." URL: www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mAiyn6gMJw. [YouTube: #dariah Teach (Channel); 8:39; Posted 23 November 2016].

#dariah Teach. 2017. "Digital Scholarly Editions: Manuscripts, Texts and TEI Encoding [Playlist: 30 videos]. URL: www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL77mHK9JuenN9NXeXQbVcUORz7HZk-9Pv. [YouTube: #dariah Teach (Channel); Updated: 1 November 2017].

Drucker, Johanna. 2015. "Digital Humanities: A Status Report with Questions." URL: www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWeRqhK_8_U. [YouTube: University of Kansas Institute for Digital Research in the Humanities (Channel); 83:59; Posted 16 November 2015].

Koentges, Thomas. 2016. "Unlocking Digital Humanities II: Digital Humanities: Everything You Wanted to Know But Haven't Yet Asked." URL: www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1HDQKiOvkE. [YouTube: AvH Chair Leipzig (Channel); 56:15; Posted 2 March 2016].

Liu, Alan. 2013. "Meaning of the Digital Humanities." URL: www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrvUys_STcs. [YouTube: NYU Center for the Humanities (Channel); 76:45; Posted 22 July 2013].

New Media Consortium. 2017. "NMC Beyond the Horizon: Digital Humanities Today." URL: www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1JRw68ogqc. [YouTube: New Media Consortium (Channel); 60:10; Posted 17 November 2017].

Risam, Roopika. 2015. "Is a Critical Digital Humanities Possible?" URL: www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6i3wDSwwoY. [YouTube: Five College Digital Humanities (Channel); 71:48; Posted 3 March 2015].

Roe, Glenn. 2014. "Distant Readings: Data Mining Approaches to the French Enlightenment." URL: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpIuDSbdEr8. [YouTube: Digital Humanities @ Western Sydney University (Channel); 49:40; Posted 14 November 2014].

Smith, Martha Neil. 2014. "Visibility, Exclusion, and Futures of Digital Humanities: Time for a Thaw." [23 October 2014]. URL: www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOgl19C1JLo. [YouTube: Case Western Reserve University (Channel); 62:51; Posted 15 December 2014].

University of Oxford: Podcasts on the Digital Humanities. 2011-2017. URL: https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/keywords/digital-humanities.

0.1. Abstract

0.1. Abstract

0.2. About This Presentation

0.2. About this Presentation [Delivered on 20 October 2018]

0.3. Navigating the Presentation (Help Page)

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0.4. Online Availability of Texts

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a.

1.1. Modernity
and
Meaning

2.1. Gilroy's

Concept

2.2. Gilroy's
Reading
of Souls

3.1.
The Meaning

in/of Texts

3.2. Algorithms
and
Digital Humanities

3.3.
Digital

Mediations

4.1. Overview:

Retextualizer

4.2. Retextualizer

Research

5.1. The "Souls"

Essay (SBFI)

5.2.
The SBFI
as a
Case Study

6.1. Reprise
and
Future Projects