computer science

Humanist (electronic seminar)

Humanist (electronic seminar) is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Humanist (electronic seminar) rather than just read about it. In short: Humanist is an international electronic seminar on humanities computing and the digital humanities, in the form of a long-running electronic mailing list and its associated archive. The primary aim of Humanist is to provide a forum for discussion of intellectual, scholarly, pedagogical, and social issues and for exchange of information among members.

Key takeaways

Humanist (electronic seminar) belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Humanist (electronic seminar) to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Humanist (electronic seminar) from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Humanist is an international electronic seminar on humanities computing and the digital humanities, in the form of a long-running electronic mailing list and its associated archive. The primary aim of Humanist is to provide a forum for discussion of intellectual, scholarly, pedagogical, and social issues and for exchange of information among members. Humanist is also a publication of the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO) and the Office for Humanities Communication (OHC) and an affiliated publication of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). In 2008, there were 1650 subscribers.

History The Humanist list was created in 1987 by Willard McCarty, then at the University of Toronto, as a BITNET (NetNorth in Canada) electronic mail newsletter for people who support computing in the humanities for the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing. McCarty, later at King's College London, continued to edit it. Although Humanist started off as a means of communication for people directly involved in the support of humanities computing, it grew in scope to become an extended conversation about the nature of "humanities computing" (or "digital humanities", or one of a contested range of other names), about what computing looks like viewed from the humanities, and humanities from computing: "Humanist remains the forum within which the technology, informed by the concerns of humane learning, can be viewed from an interdisciplinary common ground." As of 12 August 2020 the list went on hiatus for "a few weeks" for technical improvements. However, in February 2021 the list eventually moved to a new infrastructure, hosted at the University of Cologne, Germany.

References

External links Official website (from February 2021) at the Department for Digital Humanities of the University of Cologne, Germany Old website (effective until August 2020) at King's College London, allied with Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO) Office for Humanities Communication (OHC)

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Humanist (electronic seminar)

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Humanist (electronic seminar) claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Humanist (electronic seminar) before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Humanist (electronic seminar) ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Humanist (electronic seminar)

In research: Humanist (electronic seminar) appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Humanist (electronic seminar) in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Humanist (electronic seminar) is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Computer-related introductions in 1987, Digital humanities, Electronic mailing lists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Humanist (electronic seminar) outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Humanist (electronic seminar) in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Humanist (electronic seminar) means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Humanist (electronic seminar) out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Humanist (electronic seminar) in simple terms?

Why does Humanist (electronic seminar) matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Humanist (electronic seminar)?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Humanist (electronic seminar).