Video introduction to One Origin of Digital Humanities
One Origin of Digital Humanities: Fr Roberto Busa in His Own Words
Edited by Julianne Nyhan and Marco Passarotti
Translated by Philip Barras, Andreia Carvalho and Tessa Hauswedell
Springer, 2019
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-18313-4
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-18313-4
Fr Roberto Busa S.J. was an influential figure in Humanities Computing, Computational Linguistics and beyond. Our book, One Origin of Digital Humanities: Fr Roberto Busa in His Own Words gathers together Busa’s writings in English translation for the first time.
This authoritative collection explores Busa’s pioneering work on automation in the Humanities through his own words. Over the course of twenty chapters, the volume sets out the scope of Busa’s work, thought and philosophy, along with a chapter written by the Editors that reflects on Busa’s intellectual contributions and legacy. With a comprehensive bibliography of Busa’s work from 1949 to 2009, and an oral history interview with one of Busa’s translators, the volume is of interest to not just digital humanists and computational linguists, but also to historians of science, technology and the humanities alike. The book presents a deeper, more complex account of the data-led work of Busa, whose work is highly-cited yet little critiqued, and thus a new insight into the data-foundations of the (Digital) Humanities.
In 2021, the University of Edinburgh Centre for Data, Culture and Society and the Centre for Digital Humanities, UCL, organised a launch event for the book, which included introductions and talks by Melissa Terras (University of Edinburgh), Julianne Nyhan (UCL), Marco Passarotti (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore), Geoffrey Rockwell (University of Alberta) and Steve Jones (University of South Florida). Nyhan and Passarotti introduced the book, its aims and its context in the wider project of writing histories of digital humanities. Rockwell presented a talk entitled “Knowing through algorithms: How exactly did Busa and Tasman process words with calculating machines?” and Jones a talk entitled “Where Was CAAL?”
You can watch the recording of this launch here:
Or in full screen mode: here
First broadcast on 20 January 2021.
This recording is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Julianne Nyhan (February 4, 2023). Video introduction to One Origin of Digital Humanities. Arche Logos. Retrieved June 18, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/bby1


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