petition to Ms. Letizia Moratti
documents (Father Busa, McCarty, Orlandi...), press survey and links
view signatures (*)
site download (**)
English translation by Jonathan Usher, University of Edinburgh (special thanks to Luisa Carrer)
Ms Letizia
Moratti M.P.
Italian Ministry of Education, University, and Research
Viale Trastevere 76
Rome
Rome, 18th June 2002
Dear Minister,
On the 6th June, "Corriere della Sera" published an article by Giulio Benedetti entitled "Troppe lauree brevi, 400 saranno cancellate" ["Too many short degree programmes, 400 will be cut"]. The article goes on to say: "many faculties have set up a plethora of degree courses which can be told apart more by their weird titles than by their actual content. And this really doesn't help students. This abundance of educational proposals drew a comment from Letizia Moratti, the Education, University, and Research Minister, mentioning with irony: 'Scienze del fiore e del verde' ['Greenery and flower sciences']; 'Informatica Umanistica' ['Humanities Computing']; 'Tutela del territorio di interesse forestale' ['Forestry conservation studies'], and so on."
Those of us involved in Humanities Computing, signatories to this letter, feel that it is incumbent on us to explain what Humanities Computing is, what it is for, how it has become an important and established international discipline, and why it is a crucial component of modern university training.
1. What
is Humanities Computing?
Humanities Computing, as it is called internationally, is concerned with
the analysis, management and production of documents, textual data, images
etc. in the area of the humanities (literature, linguistics, philology,
philosophy, history, archaeology, the arts). This means not only furnishing
practitioners in these areas with technical skills, but also alerting
them to the changes in methodology and approach which information technology
imposes on their traditional disciplines.
2. A discipline
with a tradition
The recognised founder of the discipline is an Italian: in 1949, father
Roberto Busa SJ began to carry out in the USA, on the equipment then available,
a linguistic and literary analysis of St. Aquinas' works. Busa's revolutionary
study paved the way for all subsequent work in the field.
The most important scientific periodicals in the field are American and British "Literary and Linguistic Computing", "Computers and the Humanities", "Computers & texts", "Journal of the Association for History and Computing", distributed by prestigious publishers such as Oxford University Press and Kluwer or by important societies and associations such as the American Association for History and Computing. These scientific titles began in the 60s and 70s, in response to the growing need for specialist outlets and in particular to the massive expansion in the discipline coupled with the development of internationally significant research centres. Just a few years ago, two of the most well-known international societies (Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing and Association for Computers and the Humanities) jointly instituted an international professional award named in honour of father Busa ('Busa Award').
On the teaching front, too, the discipline can boast of over twenty years of activity: indeed the first experimental course in Humanities Computing was run in the early 80s by the Faculty of Letters at La Sapienza in Rome - long before the "New Media" became fashionable.
3. Why
does Humanities Computing Matter?
The Government, and indeed your very own Ministry, is continually underlining
the importance of Information and Communication Technologies (see for
instance the pilot
projects for the 'Spazio Europeo dell'Informazione' (=Information
European Forum), or the guidelines
for research approved by the CIPE (=Government Committee for Economic
Planning] for 2002-2003).
The work carried out by Humanities Computing these last twenty years is indeed very much along these lines: that is to say developing an innovative curriculum which links with (but is not limited to) the development of the emerging ICT professions.
Our effort is part of a wider European picture: for instance the European Commission financed 'Socrates AcoHum' (Advanced Computer in the Humanities). A number of Italian universities and European companies have recently decided to work together to produce a multilingual curriculum for Humanities Computing. (CHIME project). The aim is to prepare young people for the highest levels of technical competence and Europe-wide mobility within the education sector.
Everybody in Humanities Computing agrees on one thing, whatever the scientific background they come from: it is not enough just to graft computing skills onto traditional disciplines - the digital era requires a fundamental rethink of those disciplines themselves. This is why leaving things to 'pure' computer science experts is demonstrably a non-starter.
Finally, Minister Moratti:
Humanities Computing is not an oxymoron invented to 'tart up' tired old disciplines. Behind this term there are years of pioneering research, and scholars with international reputations.
We believe that this field of research and university training should be taken seriously, and indeed should be recognised as a discipline in its own right. For that reason, we would like to ask for a meeting so that we can better explain the subject to you, make you aware of the many exciting projects under way, and convince you of the role Humanities Computing can play both in the world of education and in the all-important preparation of Italians for the world of the modern, global workplace.
Yours truly
The Undersigned (*)
(*) If you whish to sign this petition, please send an e-mail, with indication of your name, position and institution, to Fabio Ciotti, Domenico Fiormonte or Gino Roncaglia
(**) You can freely mirror this site; the ZIP file included all the necessary files