19.329 new book: Humanities Computing

               Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 19, No. 329.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
                   www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
                        www.princeton.edu/humanist/
                     Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu

         Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 07:14:43 +0100
         From: lachance_at_origin.chass.utoronto.ca (Francois Lachance)
         Subject: Re: 19.328 new book: Humanities Computing (Palgrave, 2005)

Willard,

Thank you so much for sharing your delight upon publication of your new
book whose most cordial tone is to be treasured.

I fail to be completely explicit in quoting this sensitive passage since
I betray the pacing introduced by the type setting's line breaks:

<quote>
No corner of the academy or of society at large goes unaffected by the
snuffing, darkening opposite: the promoter's aggressive pitch, the
consumer's passive hunger and the anxiety that drives them both towards an
end of thinking. With its promise of solutions, computing is at the
cross-roads where they meet. So there we must be. And relentless curiosity
is our brightest torch.
</quote>

It is however with absolute consistency in inexplicitness that I note the
poetic flourish of ending the index with a reference to "_zuhanden_ [...]
*" and the symbol for a wild card rather than a page number. Yes, yes it
serves an indexical purpose (i.e. cross-reference to a head word). But
still as a wild card there is no knowing in advance the length of the
returned string. It is a lovely way of punctuating the close of a turn
(but not closure of a conversation that began with ? and led to *.

Congrats and all the best for garnering the reaction you seek.

--
Francois Lachance, Scholar-at-large
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~lachance/jardin
~~~ to be surprised by machines: wistly and sometimes wistfully
Dr Willard McCarty | Reader in Humanities Computing | Centre for 
Computing in the Humanities | King's College London | Kay House, 7 
Arundel Street | London WC2R 3DX | U.K. | +44 (0)20 7848-2784 fax: 
-2980 || willard.mccarty_at_kcl.ac.uk www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/wlm/