Using computers to study literature
Digital Humanities (DH), an emerging field at the intersection of computing and the traditional humanities, is alive and well at Yale. One exciting new DH endeavor is the Joseph Brodsky: Digital Humanities Lab, which began as an experimental seminar taught by Assistant Professor of Slavic languages and literatures Marijeta Bozovic. It lives on as a resource for scholars to explore and to which they can contribute. Brodsky (1940–1996) was a dissident poet and essayist of the Soviet era who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1987; the Beinecke Library holds the world’s largest collection of his papers. The DH project was initiated to draw attention to these resources, to design tools that will help researchers navigate the materials, and to share original scholarly contributions. Seminar students were trained to use a wide range of digital tools, and each pursued a research project that combined close reading, literary criticism, and theory with computer-assisted approaches such as text mining and digital mapping.
Go for the Joe
It turns out that coffee may be good for you, according to a study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Lead author Erikka Loftfield (public health), who defended her dissertation in February, and her coauthors found that drinking four or more cups of caffeinated coffee a day reduces—by 20 percent—the risk of developing cutaneous malignant melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer. She used data from the large NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study, which followed more than 400,000 participants ranging in age from 50 to 71 years old, for an average of ten years. The association did not hold for those who predominantly drank decaffeinated coffee or for non-invasive melanoma that affects only the top layer of skin. But if you don’t like coffee, that’s fine. “The most important thing individuals can do to reduce their risk of melanoma is to reduce sun and ultraviolet radiation exposure,” Loftfield says.
loading
Print
Email