Zoe LeBlanc: Could probably recommend more names but would be helpful to know if you mean historians who code and do text analysis or historians who collaborate with CS/Data Scientists (many more in the latter group I would imagine)

I'm looking for a very specific type of scholar: A historian who uses computational text analysis methods - ideally word embeddings or later methods, who works in an actual history department, who publishes in history outlets, who resides in North America. #DH help?

Ones that come to mind who are great and who, incidentally, don't perfectly fit the above: Jo Guldi and Lauren Klein. Who else?

Zoe LeBlanc, but is in an iSchool

Thanks @ecourtem.bsky.social 😊!! While in iSchool, I'm definitely a historian who uses embeddings, so happy to chat @lauraknelson.bsky.social Besides @lincolnmullen.com & @joguldi.bsky.social, I would also recommend @regan008.bsky.social, @nolauren.bsky.social, and @jerielizabeth.bsky.social

Could probably recommend more names but would be helpful to know if you mean historians who code and do text analysis or historians who collaborate with CS/Data Scientists (many more in the latter group I would imagine)

The former. I'm looking to convince skeptical Professional Historians (capital H) that it's ok, possible, and maybe even good? to teach these skills to their grad students. I'm looking for model scholars(hip), and (why I said North Am.), to maybe even invite a few out here to give talks.

Gotcha! Ya definitely experienced that skepticism before/wrote a Debates in DH chapter about that with Jeri 😅. Would definitely strongly recommend Lincoln or Amanda then since both are in History departments that try to teach some programming to historians (at GMU and Clemson, respectively).

Also have you met @heiditworek.bsky.social yet? Probably you have, but just in case you haven't yet, she's definitely a digital historian and is at UBC, so might be worth connecting! There's also Bill Turkel at UWO!

Oh yeah, Heidi and I chat frequently, and Bill's name comes up frequently in my conversations here.

Wonderful recommendations! Thanks so much. I'm compiling a list and I'm already feeling more equipped to make my case 🙏

Luke Blaxill does everything but reside in the US, including trying to convince skeptical colleagues onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Thanks for sharing this Paul! I've definitely read this one and have lots of ✨feelings✨ about it 😅. I would recommend @bschmidt.bsky.social 's post, soon to be chapter, benschmidt.org/post/2019-12... . Think it really articulates why computational methods remain marginal/controversial in History

Also lots of efforts at GMU to make the case for digital history that might be helpful: specifically the white paper rrchnm.org/portfolio-it... and models of argument-driven digital history model-articles.rrchnm.org (You probably already know these but figured I would share just in case!)

Wow. That is a gloves-off knockout of an essay.

Oh I'm so happy you shared this (new to me) essay. It looks like it might be perfect for me in this moment.

And in general I do find the Europeans are so far ahead of us luddite North Americans in history/anthropology/sociology

New to me, too! Encountered while reviewing the Intro for Living With Machines' project, which will also (eventually) be a banger for your purposes

I LOVE Living with Machines and why does Europe get all the cool history projects 😭

My department at the University of Saskatchewan is a bit of an outlier. We have a lot of people doing DH, but mostly focused on GIS/spatial and database work. But we’re also working with web archives using NLP methods and have a new PhD working alongside Zoe who is planning to text mine.

We’re also involved in a big linked open data project with Susan Brown at Guelph creating PIDs for historical entities. Kim Martin at Guelph is in a history department and Ian Milligan is in history at Waterloo. I don’t think Canada is a lot different from the USA here, but we do have some examples.

My buddy @pietervdheede.bsky.social showed me an email just yesterday from a student who took our beginner DH course and has now successfully implemented WEM's in their thesis. It really doesn't take much to get them started.

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