DH Working Group: Global Literature and the Lighthouse at Alexandria

Join UCLA’s Digital Humanities Working Group as we learn about two exciting projects:

David Kim, assistant professor, Germanic Languages, “World Literature@UCLA: Tracking Transliterations and International Publics with Gephi”

This lecture examines how social network analysis, in general, and the application Gephi, in particular, are useful for reading “world literature.” David Damrosch, Franco Moretti, Pascale Casanova, and Aamir Mufti have recently revitalized the concept first articulated by Goethe to explore how languages and literatures are translated between cultures and nations. This presentation will introduce ‘WorldLiterature@UCLA,’ a new digital project that combines the study of world literature with Digital Humanities methodologies in the classroom.

Anthony Caldwell, Labs Manager, Center for Digital Humanities, “Reverse Engineering History: Structural Analysis of the Lighthouse at Alexandria”

More than 2,000 years ago the ancient Pharos Lighthouse towered 130 meters over Alexandria, equivalent to a 35 story modern building. Compared to earlier lighthouses, the Pharos Lighthouse, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world represented a significant leap in architectural design, engineering and construction technology. Faced with scant archaeological evidence, conflicting texts, and schematic pictorial representations, scholars have long argued over the design and appearance of the lighthouse. This research, based on the tenets of experimental archaeology, draws upon the historical data, but takes as its primary basis a close analysis of the structural and construction challenges of the project.

Please feel free to come for the whole event or just part of it. Light refreshments provided.