The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 17.0862  Friday, 29 September 2006

[1] 	From: 	Jim Carroll <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
 	Date: 	Thursday, 28 Sep 2006 12:09:26 -0400
 	Subj: 	Re: SHK 17.0853 Once More

[2] 	From: 	David Kathman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
 	Date: 	Thursday, 28 Sep 2006 11:44:34 -0500
 	Subj: 	Re: SHK 17.0853 Once More


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: 		Jim Carroll <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: 		Thursday, 28 Sep 2006 12:09:26 -0400
Subject: 17.0853 Once More
Comment: 	Re: SHK 17.0853 Once More

<>"I have now proven...."

Sorry your highness, I don't believe you.  I wish English department types 
would limit the use of the word "proof" to those things which can be 
deduced from incontrovertible axioms. And isn't this the same cast of 
characters that gave a Ph.D.  to someone in Oxfordian studies?

Jim Carroll

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: 		David Kathman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: 		Thursday, 28 Sep 2006 11:44:34 -0500
Subject: 17.0853 Once More
Comment: 	Re: SHK 17.0853 Once More

Al Magary wrote:

>Computerized Analysis Helps Researchers Define Shakespeare's Work Using 
'Literary >Fingerprint'
>PhysOrg.com (from University of Massachusetts-Amherst), September 27, 
2006
>http://www.physorg.com/news78593028.html
>
>A team of researchers that includes scholars from the University of 
Massachusetts
>Amherst is using computerized analysis of the writing of William 
Shakespeare to
>dispel lingering doubts about his authorship of many works and to trace 
the outlines
>of his total body of compositions.

[snip]

I was one of a couple dozen or so people who attended a presentation by 
Arthur Kinney, Hugh Craig, and their team this past July at the World 
Shakespeare Congress in Brisbane, Australia.  From what I heard there, it 
sounds like they're doing some very interesting and potentially valuable 
work, but this press release makes me extremely leery with its talk of 
having "proved" Shakespeare's authorship or non-authorship of various 
works.  The audience at the presentation had some sharp questions for some 
of the participants, which is as it should be.  I'm probably more open to 
computer-assisted authorship studies than many people in the field, but I 
recognize that such studies are only one kind of evidence, and must be 
considered alongside other, more traditional types of evidence. 
Ultimately, such questions of attribution are decided by the broader 
community of Shakespeareans, and the type of excessively confident 
rhetoric used in this press release is likely to turn off many people who 
are already inclined to look skeptically on any kind of computer-aided 
literary study.

Dave Kathman
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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