About Me

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I am Professor of Digital Humanities at the University of Glasgow and Theme Leader Fellow for the 'Digital Transformations' strategic theme of the Arts and Humanities Research Council. I tweet as @ajprescott.

This blog is a riff on digital humanities. A riff is a repeated phrase in music, used by analogy to describe a improvisation or commentary. In the 16th century, the word 'riff' meant a rift; Speed describes riffs in the earth shooting out flames. The poet Jeffrey Robinson points out that riff perhaps derives from riffle, to make rough.

Maybe we need to explore these other meanings of riff in thinking about digital humanities, and seek out rough and broken ground in the digital terrain.

2 February 2014

Dennis the Paywall Menace Stalks the Archives

A story that hit the news this week was a report that the Prime Minister David Cameron is distantly related to the comedian Al Murray, and that they both had ancestors who worked for the East India Company. This news item was part of the publicity for the release online of 2.5 million genealogical records which are part of the India Office...

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