Diane K. Jakacki

Posters at DH2019

I’ll be presenting two posters at DH2019:

“Encoding the ‘Floating Gap’”: Linking Cultural Memory, Identity, and Complex Place” (with Katherine Faull, Bucknell University): In this poster the authors present a model for encoding what ethnographers term the “floating gap” when constructing an historical gazetteer of place names. This step is especially crucial as scholars make intersections and linkages between place-based, data-driven research projects. The authors argue that the concepts for Event and Place used to encode semantic relationships overlook the fact that it is the Actor or Agent who names the events, and thus by extension names the places at which those events occurred. Place names connected with those events must correspond to those agents. In the brave new world of linked data, the vagaries of named places constitute a vexed problem, and attempts to resolve the messiness and fuzziness of place, time, and perspective run the risk of eliding the floating gap of cultural memory.
(if you’re at the conference, this poster can be viewed at #45 – we’ll publish the poster after the conference.)

“Who Teaches When We Teach DH?” (with Brian Croxall, Brigham Young University): In this poster, we will present the work we have done to develop a survey of those teaching digital humanities throughout the world. First, we will discuss the development of the survey. Second, we will outline the methodology we ascertain how and who these teachers are. Third, we will begin in real time the data collection at the conference.have employed in developing the survey in order to best.
(If you’re at the conference, this poster can be viewed at #46 – the results of the survey will be published in 2020.)

Announcing Debates in DH Pedagogy!

Brian Croxall and I are thrilled to announce a call for abstracts for a forthcoming edited volume, Debates in Digital Humanities Pedagogy. The book will appear in the Debates in the Digital Humanities series from the University of Minnesota Press, edited by Matthew K. Gold and Lauren F. Klein.

Over the last decade, Digital Humanities (DH) has reinvigorated discussions of pedagogy in the academy. Unconferences on DH pedagogy and blogs about teaching with digital methods in the humanities classroom have led to extensive discussions about approaches to teaching at annual disciplinary conferences. At the same time, conversations and debates about teaching digital humanities—whether to undergraduates, graduate students, or to the faculty themselves—have led to more and more people becoming involved in the field, each of them coming from different subjects bringing their own perspectives and praxes with them to the teaching of DH. We have arrived at a moment when institutions are formally integrating DH into the curriculum and granting degrees; we are creating minors, majors, and even graduate certificates in DH; all of this while many of us are still new to the experience of (teaching) DH. This calls for another round of discussion of DH pedagogy or a discussion of pedagogy in a new key.

These students—and the ways in which we teach them—are a very real expression of what each of us as instructors believes digital humanities to be. As our students and our colleagues continue to ask us “What is digital humanities?” we have the opportunity to answer their questions in terms of how we teach digital humanities.
Read more at the full CFP here, including the deadline to submit abstracts.

Illustration in Early Modern English Play-Texts

Jakacki, Diane Katherine, and University of Waterloo. Department of English Language and Literature. “‘Covetous to Parley with so Sweet a Frontis-Peece’ : Illustration in Early Modern English Play-Texts.” University of Waterloo, University of Waterloo, 2010.

Abstract: This dissertation studies visual artifacts associated with early modern theatre and book culture, and through them examines acts of communication in the marketplace. These artifacts, illustrated play-text title pages from the period 1600 to 1660, provide scholars with an opportunity to better understand the discursive power of theatre and subjects associated with drama in seventeenth-century London. This work offers a set of case studies that demonstrate how title page imagery and its circulation can contribute to our understanding of contemporary theatre culture, and addresses questions of intention, production and distribution. As well, it offers insights into early modern modes of constructing visualization. These artifacts served not only as visual reminders or interpretations of the dramatic works they represented, but were also used as powerful marketing tools that enhanced the cultural capital of the plays throughout London. The title pages were used as posters, tacked to the walls of the booksellers’ shops; the woodcuts were also repurposed, and incorporated into other popular publications such as broadside ballads, which retold the plots of the plays in musical form and were sold on city street corners. These connections raise questions about early modern forms of marketing used by publishers, and challenge the widely accepted belief that images held little value in the society and in the culture of print of the period. In addition, the distribution of these illustrations challenges the widespread conviction that early modern English culture was iconophobic, and suggests that seventeenth-century English society embraced rather than spurned visual media. Methodologically, this study is built on the foundations laid by scholars of English theatre and print culture. Within those fields, however, it has been customary to view these title page illustrations as inferior forms of representation, especially in comparison to their continental counterparts. By using tools from visual rhetoric to expand on how and what these images communicate, I am able to show the important functions they performed, and the distinct and playful way they represent complex relationships between stage and page, audience and performance, reading and spectating. These readings, in turn, enrich our historical understanding of the cultures of print and theatre, and build upon our knowledge of the interactions between these rich and important fields. Each chapter explores theoretical and contextual questions that pertain to some aspect of each illustration, as well as examining whether individual illustrations can inform us further about early modern theatrical performance practices. The introduction surveys the relevant field and introduces the theoretical resources that will be used in the subsequent chapters. Chapter Two examines the 1633 edition of Arden of Faversham and the question of whether the action in the illustration pertains to the play or to a broadside ballad that appeared in the same year. The third chapter provides a theoretical analysis of the performance of violence in the woodcut for The Spanish Tragedy, and how emphatic elements in the image may demonstrate the influence of theatrical performance upon the artist. Chapter Four explores the relationship between the title page of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay and the concept of celebrity in relation to the Tarltonesque clown character who dominates the action of the image. Chapter Five considers the problematic relationship between theatre, politics and satire in the competing engraved title pages for A Game at Chess. The conclusion draws together the findings, and points to other aspects of early modern print and theatre cultures to which they pertain.

Resolving the Polynymy of Place: or, how to create a gazetteer of colonized landscapes

This is the abstract for a paper I co-presented with Katie Faull at DH2018 in Mexico City on June 28, 2018.

The slides and notes for the talk are deposited on Humanities Commons: https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:19929/.

Conference abstract: This paper will explore the problem of creating a gazetteer of colonized landscapes, specifically those of the mid-Atlantic in the 18th century, in which the name of a place (toponym) changes depending on the person or political entity who is describing that place. In colonized landscapes, there can be multiple names for one place. Maps of this period are veritable palimpsests of conquests and defeats; and travel diaries, mission records and letters contain accounts of human experience of places that are multiply identified. The task is made more complicated still when one factors time into the equation: when competing spatial identities persist across generations. The paper proposes a two-phased approach to developing the Moravian Lives gazetteer, which will expand geographically to places beyond North America and will need to resolve polynymic complexities in Central Europe, the Arctic areas of Greenland and Newfoundland, the Caribbean, South Africa and Australia.

Christine Seidel

2. The Widow Christine Eleonore Seidel

2. The Widow Christine Eleonore Seidel.
(her Maiden Name was Peistel)
She wrote of herself:
I am born the 28^th of May 1707 at Litowiz in Misonie. Myn Vater has been Carl Fridric Peisteland my Mother Eleonore born of Bradenstein, of the generation Zoeshen by Merseburg. We have been 5 Brethren & SistersChildren, two of them are gone home in their tender Ages, and we three have been brought up at home, and we came according to our Pradestination to the Congregation. We had a Lovefull but a serious Mother, who had our true best at Heart, She was a Lover of the Cross of Christ & acknowledged Christ crucified for her only Happiness in time & Eternity for every Body. She had a Connectionw.^th our Saviour & did not Love the World, & This has been the Subsect of her discoursing w.^th us, in a very evangelical Manner & this effected towards our Mother by us a great Love & respect. By occasion She very often declard to us: that our Saviour certified her Heart, that not one of her Children should be lost, but all should become his Property & live for him in this World. This made some times a deep Impression on our Hearts, I for my Part was not without Feeling, nevertheless I did not know my Redeemer. In the Time following the Lust to the World begun to stir & I began to like the World & the World liked me & seekd for me.

Christiane Eleonora Seidel, page 2 (left and right)

Alone my true Saviour did’t leave me Rest in Pleasure whatsoever but transformed all wordly Pleasuresinto Bitterness, Grief & Mourning. I knew very well I was not converted & therefore took one Resolution after the other, but without Effect; then I always begun driven by the Restlessness of my Heart w.^th my own
Power, therefore I never found rest or get into a true Connection w.^th our Saviour. By the infattigableDesire of our dear Mother our Saviour provideth for us, and we got a Proceptor from D^r Buddei, Named Hofman (a intimate Friend to our blessed B.^r Vierroth) who recommended contualy continually the Love of our crucified Saviour w.^th a burning Heart to us; and was of one Opinion w.^th our Dear Mammy.

A.^o1735 our dear Saviour took our dear Mother on a sudden but very happy home to himself. We, her three Children where present, because our Brother to the same time a Prussian Officer came home by a instinct unknown for what, he found her still well, but had not long to wait to see her closing her Eyes happy & in Peace. Her so happy & JoyfulFarewell, had such a Effect on our Hearts that we three together took the resolution at once, to have no part w.^th the World, but to give our whole Hearts to our Saviour Jesus Christ. But I for my part did’t know this true Friend of Sinners. I tried all the means I could, I read very

often the History of the Suffering & Death of our Saviour not without Effect upon my Heart; but I alwaysbeganby becoming Pious & to Show my Duty to God, and so I came by all my restlessness not farther. Then I became acquainted with Separatists, & would undoubtedly have fallen deeper & deeper in my own Working; had not our Saviour directed, that Magister Seidel was calld as Deacon to Mutschen as the Place of our Residence. He begun to preach our Saviour w.^th Power & Grace & our Sav.^r regulated it so that I became his Wife, notwithstanding all the Difficulties which would arise in this respect. This Marriage was a great Blessing to my
Heart. My Husbands’ tender Conversation w.^th our Saviour moved my Heart anew, that as he ask’d me in the first Days of our Marriage: how it would be
with me? if People would drive him out for the Sakeof our dear Saviour out of the Town & Country? I made a Covenant w.^th him, to follow him willingly [.] and partake w.^th him for our Saviours Sake what would follow. A. 1740. He went to see the Congregation in Hhuth. This Visit brought a great Blessing about his Heart and I got my Share by that dreams to. From this Time quite a new a happy Period begun w.^th us. A.^o1741. The 22^d of March as he was
Preaches to the Garrison at the of Königs Stoneour dear Saviour took him home in his eternal favoty. He Witnesseth still on his Sick Bed towards all

Christiane Eleonora Seidel, page 3 (left and right)

who came to see him, from the Power of the Blood of Christ with a becoming Tenderness. His happy & Joyful Departure to our Saviour renewd & fastened the Impression, I had, of the blessed Con_versation w.^th him.

Now my former Inclination to the had fixd in me such a Fear of myself, that I no where trusted to live, & imagined Danger every where; but the Friend of my Soul soon recollected to me, that I lookd more on my blessed Husband as on the Connection w.^th him. This made me prostrate myself before & I begged w.^th 1000 Fears forgiveness over all what passed. He Mercy took me as I was, & I had from thence a more happy Period. By all that, I could not get rid of my Scrupulosity by the feelings of my Misery & like a Child draw near to him according to my Wish, therefore the Fear of myself darkneth my happy Hours very often. In this very Year, I & my Sister went to see the Con_gregation at Hhuth, there I felt the very Peace of God, and the Brethren & Sisters I looked on as Children of God and had a great respect towards them & I wishd incognito to live in this Place. 1742. We came to see Hhuth a second time & there we determined to remove thither. But by setting out for Herrnhuth some Accident happened & we postponed our Journey. Hereby

a dangerous Period for my poor Heart begun, a false Poeple filled our Minds with so much dangerous Expectations and Things against the Congregation, that our Journey was quite dropped. By all that our Saviour was so gracious to beware that I did’t sin against his Church, & my Desire still remaining to spend my Days under this Poeple. I was busy in reading the DisciplesSermons deliverd at Berlin & begged our Saviour very often that if I belonged to this Folks, he would himself find means to bring me thither. As my Brother moved from Wetteravia to Bertholsdorf, I & my Sister paid him a Visit there for some Weeks, by that we saw what false Opinions had for foundation. But for all that I knewvery well that some People who came to the Con_gregation have been sent by & by back again, this made me terribly afraid to venture asking Leave
nevertheless I felt a Instinct in my Heart that I belonged to this People. At last I & my Sister desireth Leave to stay in Bertholsdorf(only to be near Hhuth & to try if we belong to the Congregation or not) We got Leave & then the 9^th of Jan. 1747. we arrived in Bertholsdorf to stay there.

Exact a Month passed as the 9^th of Febr. in a

Meeting

Christiane Eleonora Seidel, page 4 (left and right)

Meeting at the Hall in Hhuth as they sung this verse: Wie bin ich doch so herzlich froh. My bloody Redeemer on a sudden appeard before me, & my poor Heart melted away by feeling his blessed Nearness for Shame about my deep Misery & Sinful Condition. I never can forget this blessed Moment & I shall remember it & adore my Saviour therefore in Eternity.

From this Time the Sisters took more particular Care upon me, & for all I liveth in Berthols_dorf I got Leave to partake on the Communion_Meetings in Hhuth.

1747 the 22^d of Octob.^r to the greatest Joy & Shame of my poor Heart, I was received in the Congregation in Hhuth, this gave one a new Spirit to lay down my whole Heart before my Redeemer as a poor Reward for his Trouble; and still I remember by every Reception, the Grace beflowed upon my Soul by this Opportunity.
A.^o1748 March 20^th I removed from Hh Bertholsdorf to Hhuth

March 25^th our Saviour beflowed the great Mercy on me to partake w.^th the Congregation the holy Sacrament of his inestimable Flesh & Blood. Here all Words fall to short to express what my

poor

poor Heart felt thereby.

From that Time I passd my Time as well in the Congregation as my dear Choir cheerful and happy and my Heart was really attached to our dear Saviour. If some times a cloudy Hour came upon me, as whereto my poor Temper much inclined, it was soon dispersed as soon as my Heart wept for our dear Saviours feet.

A.^o1756 the 14^th of March I was taken among the hourly Intercessors, by this special Conversation w.^th our dear Saviour, I had many Blessings & for fo my own part many delightful Insights into the Siner_ loving Heart of our Redeemer.

The 3^th of Febr. a.c. I was received amongst the Acoluths. received. the 8 of July as the new Classes who were errected I became a Help Mate in one of them. The 3^th of Febr. I became the first time Choir Disciple which was a Opportunity to keep close to the Heart of my dearest Redeemer & a true blessing for my poor Soul (after that this Grace happened oftener to her, and She was the last Choir Disciple.) In the Beginning of the Year 61. Our dear Saviour was very gracious to me & blessed me w.^th his Nearness & my constant Prayer was only: Dear Saviour remain so with me, till I see thy face to Face.

18^th Febr.

The 16^th of Febr. a.c. I had the Pleasure to move in our new Choir-House. I desireth by that means by our Saviour as a Present a quite happy Choir Heart. (Since that I had lived in the House of my Brother.) He alone knoweth the Fears of my Heart, and I know he’ll transfer me by his Mercy to his own & holy Pleasure.

So far her own Words.
That our Saviour was near to our blessed Sister in her Choir-House & heard her Desires may easily be seen by the following verses, which she made on her last Birth Day the 28^th of May:

Wie dank ich dir mein ewger Mann
for das, was du dis Jahr gethan
an deinem armen sundgen Kind
das nichts als Mängel an sich findt.

X X
Ich gebe deinen blutgen Fuss
den sünderhafsten Gruss und Kuss
for alle Gnade und Geduld
und fors vergeben meiner Schuld.
X X
Ach wie beshämt es mich so sehr
Dass ich dir noch nicht mehr zur Ehr
Schenk mir ein ganz zersehmolzen Herz
verliebt in deinen Todt und Schmerz
X X
Gott heilger Geist du Mutter mein
lehr mich dir recht gehorsam sein
ergiess Dich reichlich uber mich
Zum Pfingst-Fest das erwarte ich.

X X
Und hofe auf ein seligs Jahr
Als sonsten noch Nie keines war.
O dass du mich so schmuktest aus,
Dass mich mein Mann nehm bald nach Houss.
X X
Wie würde doch dem Würmelein
Beym Sehn des Lams zu Muthe sein
Vielleicht ben ich heut ubers Iahr
By Ihm in seiner obern Sohaar.
X X
Drum soll myn Aug auf nichls mehr Sehn
Als nur auf seine Leidens Schön
Dem Ohr gefalle sonst kein Klang
als nur der Passions Gesang.

It was very plain to be perceived, that the holy Ghost hastened with her Adornment; She could herself nothing imagine more sweet as to receive the last Kiss from the lovely Lips of her Lover; and this her last Sickness was the Opportunity to still her Desire. The 23^th of March, She was taken by a hard fit of Colic, that She was forced to keep to her Bed, but by all her Pain, the Conversation w.^th our dear Saviour & his Smart & Sufferings made her Sick bed easily & supportable supportable to her.

The 24^th She found herself very weak &

expected

Christiane Eleonora Seidel, page 7 (left and right)

her great Sabbath Day with extaordnary Longing took tender Leave by Words so much for Weakness’ would allow to express by her Brother, Sister & other Acquaintances, but afterwards She expressd her tender Love by a smiling Look on, [a] so She remaineth present to herself to the last Gap or Breath. When They sung verses, She refresheth her Heart by and sung accompanied w.^th a broken Voice, sometimes strechd out her Arms towards her Brautigroom!

As the last Moment came nearer, then they Blessed her in the Name of her Choir w.^th a uncommon Feeling of the Nearness of our dear Saviour, & under these Words: Ihr Glieder rein Gott ehr euch, des heilge Geist ver- klär euch. flew the 23^th in the Evening her reconciled Soul happy home in the Wounds of Jesus Christ. A still & blessed Peace of God extended themselves about all who were present & left to her Corpse a lovely Prospect.

Latest

2. The Widow Christine Eleonore Seidel

Meeting

poor

18th Febr.

expected

18^th Febr.