Drucker lays the theoretical groundwork with her theory of speculative computation and she offers a few models of practice, but these are just a diving-off point for humanities reinterpretations of computation. For my purposes, how can a “dynamic and subjective” embodiment of data (Humanities Computation) be a means of rigorous scholarly engagement? What is a responsible method for visual reinterpretation? What interpretive claims can I make by engaging in this process?

I came up against these issues again and again. My texts clearly lay out temporal guidelines by which I could map data, but they do not quantify other elements, and I wanted to find a way to factor in the interpretive roles of the source authors and my own interpretive role.

This is an ongoing process. I'm not sure if I've found satisfactory responses to theoretical questions about computationally reinterpreting textual capta—how to visually render it an expression that is both systematic and subjective.

However, grappling with them has yielded lines of textual reinterpretation that may still be fruitful for scholarly work. Regardless of the product, the method has enabled literary investigation (“Speculative Computing”). The process has raised an important set of questions about how and why the author of each text articulated behavioral prescriptions in a particular way, and what each author's subjective contribution is to the cultural maternal construct.

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Author: Alison Hedley
Word Count: 222

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