Gastvortrag Prof. Dr. David Bénéteau – 9.6.2022

Das Institut für Romanistik lädt zu einem Gastvortrag von Prof. Dr. David Bénéteau mit dem Titel

„The future of the past: digital editions in the 21st century“

 

Zeit: Donnerstag, 9.6.2022, 11.00-12.30 Uhr

Ort: N.0.67

 

Vita:

David Bénéteau is among the most celebrated scholars in Italy in the editions of medieval manuscripts.  He has finished his third book (Le verace istorie Romane) which will appear this summer and is working on the fourth, Le Amazzoni; two articles appeared last year.  During this year on sabbatical he has been invited to two conferences, and invited to lecture at a series of universities, Bologna, Genova and Siena.  He has taught in Europe, in China and in Canada, and he is a full professor in the United States.  He would like to share the exciting developments which makes the production of critical editions, once a difficult and time-consuming endeavour, accessible to junior colleagues and discuss the future of digital humanities.

 

Abstract:

Prof. Bénéteau will talk about how digital changes have revolutionized the work as philologers. First, what used to be necessary to produce a book worthy of publication?  Great expertise; time; and extensive funding.  It’s increasingly rare to see “magnum opuses” that the one I published appear under one author’s name.  Faculty often can’t take the time away from teaching, or find the funding available for the travel.

Nowadays, the principal novelty is the abundance of digital copies of mss. available.  On one hand, this makes it harder: there is much more material to be considered.  On the other hand, it can be done from anywhere and requires little funding.

Imagine you can create a team as a Principal Investigator: you have a philologist, paleographer, linguist, codicologist, historian, art history expert on miniatures, map maker, experts in different countries where the manuscripts are, computer programmer.  These grants exist now and there are many in Europe:  they are called ERC advanced grants.  I hope to encourage students to try to join such research teams.