Alan Liu will discuss some specific methods and tools of digital work in the humanities, framed within three larger methodological concerns: 1) quantitative method in DH and the problem of meaning, 2) social network analysis and spatialization, and 3) the prospect of developing a new generation of DH platforms/tools that incorporate a public engagement/advocacy function.

Alan Liu is Professor of English at UC, Santa Barbara, where he is also affiliated with the Media Arts & Technology Graduate Program. He has published three books: Wordsworth: The Sense of History (1989); The Laws of Cool: Knowledge Work and the Culture of Information (2004); and Local Transcendence: Essays on Postmodern Historicism and the Database (2008). DH projects he's directed include UC's Transliteracies Project on online reading and the software project RoSE (Research-oriented Social Environment). Liu is co-leader of the 4Humanities advocacy initiative and of the 4Humanities local chapter at UCSB.