MINGYUAN CHEN
Mingyuan is currently in the MSc Material Cultures and History of the Book programme at the University of Edinburgh. An international student, her research interests have focused on teaching English as a foreign language, and comparative studies of Chinese and English literature. She has recently started her dissertation research on the implications of digitisation on content display and information acquisition, and their consequent impact on the experience of reading and cognitive processing. For The Dynamiter project, she is working with stylometry and authorship attribution techniques, corpora preparation, biographies of R.L.S. and Fanny, copy-editing, bibliography organising, and relevant manuscript research on R.L.S. and Fanny.
CARLOS FONSECA
Carlos is completing an MSc in Comparative Literature at the University of Edinburgh. He is enthusiastic about interdisciplinary approaches to different fields, including Literary Theory, Aesthetics, Philosophy of Language, and Cultural Studies, amongst others. Having always been fascinated by the way in which new technologies shape the realm of the arts and culture, his experience with Digital Humanities has been a novel way of experimenting and studying this first-hand. For The Dynamiter project, Carlos works with various stylometric methods, determines adequate parameters for analysis, and researches R.L.S. and Fanny V.G. Stevenson.
LAURA MCALEESE
Laura is currently a postgraduate student of Modern and Contemporary Literature at the University of Edinburgh. Her academic background from Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich ranges from English Literature and Linguistics to Music, Theatre, and Cultural Studies. Having developed a strong interest in technology in music and the visual arts, Digital Humanities completes this knowledge with an in-depth theoretical background of current grassroots debates in the field and an overview of statistical and IT-based methodology. As well as incorporating corpus-based analysis of word patterns and themes into her research areas of Modernist fiction and poetry and experimental literary representation in the 20th and 21st century, Laura is intrigued by the possibilities of enriching conventional scholarship and indeed all academic and creative thought processes with the means of technology. In The Dynamiter project, Laura assists with corpus preparation and electronic text editing, archive research on Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny, and media integration on the website.
ALBA MOROLLÓN DÍAZ-FAES
Alba is currently completing a master’s program on Literature and Modernity at the University of Edinburgh. Originally from Spain, her previous academic pursuits focused on English linguistics, literature and teaching. Her research ranges from Modernist fiction to contemporary media of all kinds, with a special interest on the representations of gender and sexuality in fiction, film, and television. Alba’s recent incursion in the field of Digital Humanities has opened a new world of fascinating possibilities for current and future research, and, having been a teacher for many years, she appreciates the educational potential of the discipline. Her work in The Dynamiter project includes locating and preparing suitable digitized materials, organizing and maintaining the corpora, and researching different methods of authorship attribution and stylometric analysis.
ELIZABETH NICHOLAS
Elizabeth is an MSc candidate in the University of Edinburgh’s Literature and Modernity program, and focuses on post-World War II American literature. She is interested in the intersection of history, literature, and media, and how computational and digital tools can expose and explore new paradigms for traditional subjects of study. A former managing editor of The Aspen Institute’s magazine, and former editorial assistant at Vanity Fair, she put her publishing skills to work designing The Dynamiter project’s website, along with assigning and managing the development of all text and art related to the project, and managing the project in general. Trained in history as an undergraduate at Harvard University, she is also responsible for contextualizing authorship attribution in humanities scholarship and that of the Dynamiter for the project’s followers.
ROBYN PRITZKER
As one of five students in the MSc Book History program at the University of Edinburgh, Robyn has had the opportunity this year to work on very specialised research and topics. Intrigued in particular by the periodical press in the late Victorian and Edwardian periods, women in the early 20th century publishing industry, and women’s book history more holistically, Robyn hopes to continue exploring these fields in the future. With many years of experience as an aide in a Montessori classroom, and an additional background in social media management, she is thrilled to see the pedagogical opportunities offered by Digital Humanities. Robyn’s role in the Dynamiter project includes corpora management, organisational upkeep, copyediting, historical/biographical work, and connecting the research to other cultural channels.