COMPUTERS AND THE HUMANITIES
Volume 30 No. 3 1996
The third number of Volume 30 (1996) of Computers and the Humanities
(CHum) has just been published by Kluwer Academic Press.
This issue introduces a new feature of the journal entitled "Debates
in Humanities Computing". This first debate in the series treats the
controversial topic of statistical methods for authorship attribution,
which has recently received unprecedented coverage in the
international press: first, concerning the controversy over Richard
Abrams' and Donald Foster's assertion of Shakespearean authorship of
an obscure elegy, and later (and even more spectacularly), concerning
Foster's subsequent attempt to identify the author of "Primary Colors"
(Random House, 1996). To satisfy the obsession of the White House
staff and the Washington and New York press corps to find out who
wrote the book, Foster created an e-text archive of the principal
candidates and used statistical methods to identify CBS correspondent
Joe Klein as the author. After repeated denials on numerous
international television shows and in the press, Klein finally
admitted writing "Primary Colors", leading to unprecedented media
interest in methods that have been a mainstay of humanities computing
for decades.
The debate presented in this number of Computers and the Humanities
includes an attack by Elliot and Valenza on statistical methods used
in Shakepearean authorship studies, and Donald Foster's detailed
rebuttal of their claims. The regular articles in the issue also
report on results of computer-assisted stylistic studies.
The articles in this number of CHum are sure to fuel the continued
debate over statistical methods, and is of interest to all those
involved in authorship and stylistic studies as well as statistical
methods for language analysis generally.
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COMPUTERS AND THE HUMANITIES
Volume 30 No. 3 1996
Table of Contents
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DEBATES IN HUMANITIES COMPUTING: Methodology in Authorship Studies
And Then There Were None: Winnowing the Shakespeare Claimants
Ward E. Y. Elliot and Robert J. Valenza
Response to Elliot and Valenza "And Then There were None"
Donald W. Foster
REGULAR PAPERS
Traditional and Emotional Stylometric Analysis of the Songs of
Beatles Paul McCartney and John Lennon
Cynthia Whissell
Tamburlaine Stalks in Henry VI
Thomas Merriam
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INFORMATION ABOUT COMPUTERS AND THE HUMANITIES
Computers and the Humanities
The Official Journal of The Association for Computers and the
Humanities
Editors-in-Chief:
Nancy Ide, Dept. of Computer Science, Vassar College, USA
Daniel Greenstein, Executive, Arts and Humanities Data Services,
King's College, UK
For subscriptions or information, please consult http://kapis.www.wkap.nl/
or contact:
Dieke van Wijnen
Kluwer Academic Publishers
Spuiboulevard 50
P.O. Box 17
3300 AA Dordrecht
The Netherlands
Phone: (+31) 78 639 22 64
Fax: (+31) 78 639 22 54
E-mail: Dieke.vanWijnen@wkap.nl
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