CEDAR Project Teams

The seven CEDAR project teams are listed below. These projects span ancient, medieval, and modern literature. They have been carefully chosen to provide test cases from a wide range of cultures, languages, and writing systems. CEDAR demonstrates that the same computational platform can be used for any textual research project while permitting scholars in diverse fields to describe textual phenomena according to their own conventions and preferences. Descriptions of the seven projects are provided on the Project Descriptions page.

Within each CEDAR project team, scholars with expertise in a particular corpus supervise student assistants who work with digitized facsimile images of original manuscripts (in the case of ancient and medieval projects) or with images of printed pages (for Shakespeare and other authors for whom manuscripts are not preserved), or with both (for modern authors such as Melville whose manuscripts are in some cases preserved). Similar methods are used for both manuscripts and printed texts. Textual variants of course appear in hand-copied manuscripts, reflecting complex histories of scribal transmission and revision. But it is often the case that there are significant variations in successive printed editions of a literary work. For example, the Folio and quarto editions of Shakespeare’s plays often diverge, and even within a single edition, early printing practices resulted in variations in typesetting and even in wording from one print run to the next, analogous to the scribal variations found in hand-copied manuscripts. Likewise, it is often the case that the printed works of a later author, such as Herman Melville, were revised by the author or abridged and expurgated by a publisher in a subsequent edition.

The students use the OCHRE database software to enter transcriptions, translations, bibliog­raphy, and commentary for each manuscript or printed text, interlinking the many atomized epigraphic and discursive entities extracted from the texts. This is not simply mechanical data entry; the nature of the work is such that the students are intellectually engaged in developing and testing new ways of conceptualizing, recording, and dis­playing textual variants in close consultation with their faculty advisors and the computational staff. In the process, the students work with the computational staff to speed up the workflow by automating repetitive tasks, resulting in new software features that the students test and help to refine in an iterative manner. Improve­ments to the common underlying computational platform are immediately available for all projects to use.

The Hebrew Bible

• Jeffrey Stackert, Professor of Hebrew Bible, Divinity School, University of Chicago (project leader and co-director of the CEDAR initiative)
• Simeon Chavel, Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible, Divinity School, University of Chicago
• Ronald Hendel, Norma and Sam Dabby Professor of Hebrew Bible and Jewish Studies, University of California, Berkeley
• Tuukka Kauhanen, University Lecturer and Academy Research Fellow in Biblical Studies, University of Helsinki
• Reinhard Müller, Professor of Old Testament, University of Göttingen
• Juha Pakkala, University Lecturer in Biblical Studies, University of Helsinki
• Sarah Yardney, Postdoctoral Researcher, Divinity School, University of Chicago (UChicago Ph.D. in Bible, 2017)
• Doren Snoek, Teaching Fellow, Divinity School and the College, University of Chicago (UChicago Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East, 2021)
• Student assistants at the University of Chicago: Joseph Cross (2017–2018), Ph.D. student in Hebrew Bible and Egyptology; Bradley Hansen (2020–), Ph.D. student in New Testament and Early Christian Literature; Tommaso Bacci (2022–), Ph.D. student in Hebrew Bible.

The Epic of Gilgamesh

• Miller Prosser, Director of Online Publications, Forum for Digital Culture, University of Chicago (project leader pro tem)
• Christopher Woods, Professor of Assyriology and Sumerology and Williams Director of the Penn Museum, University of Pennsylvania (former project leader)
• Abraham Winitzer, Jordan H. Kapson Associate Professor of Jewish Studies, University of Notre Dame
• Student assistants at the University of Chicago: Andrew Wilent (2017–2018), Ph.D. student of Cuneiform Studies; Colton Siegmund (2018–2022), Ph.D. student of Cuneiform Studies

The Egyptian Book of the Dead

• Foy Scalf, Research Associate and Head of Research Archives, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, University of Chicago (project leader)
• Brian Muhs, Associate Professor of Egyptology, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures and Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations, University of Chicago
• Rita Lucarelli, Associate Professor of Egyptology, University of California, Berkeley
• Student assistant at the University of Chicago: Beth Wang (2022–), M.A. student of Egyptology

Piers Plowman

• Ian Cornelius, Associate Professor of English, Loy0la University Chicago (project leader)
• Julie Orlemanski, Associate Professor, Department of English Language & Literature, University of Chicago
• Timothy Stinson, Associate Professor of English, North Carolina State University, and Co-Director, Piers Plowman Electronic Archive
• Student assistant at the University of Chicago: Kashaf Qureshi, Ph.D. student of English

Beshrew Me! Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew and Early Modern Domestic Culture

• Ellen MacKay, Associate Professor, Department of English Language & Literature and Committee on Theater & Performance Studies, University of Chicago (project leader and co-director of the CEDAR initiative)
• Pamela Allen Brown, Professor of English, University of Connecticut, Stamford
• Frances Dolan, Distinguished Professor of English, University of California, Davis
• Tara Lyons, Associate Professor of English, Illinois State University
• Kirsten Sword, independent scholar (formerly Assistant Professor of History, Indiana University)
• Victoria Yeoman, Assistant Professor of English, Seneca College, Toronto
• Student assistants at the University of Chicago: Ashleigh Cassemere-Stanfield (2017–2018), Ph.D. student of English; Arianna Gass (2017–2018), Ph.D. student of English; Sarah-Gray Lesley (2018– ), Ph.D. student of English

Indigenous American Sign Systems

• Edgar Garcia, Associate Professor, Department of English Language & Literature, University of Chicago (project leader)
• Claudia Brittenham, Associate Professor, Department of Art History, University of Chicago
• Jon Clindaniel, Assistant Senior Instructional Professor in Computational Social Science, University of Chicago
• Mark Payne, Chester D. Tripp Professor, Departments of Classics and Comparative Literature and the Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago
• Student assistant at the University of Chicago: Julia Marsan, Ph.D. student of Comparative Literature

The Works of Herman Melville

• John Bryant, Professor Emeritus of English, Hofstra University, and Director, Melville Electronic Library (project leader)
• Wyn Kelley, Senior Lecturer in Literature, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Christopher Ohge, Senior Lecturer in Digital Approaches to Literature, University of London
• Eric Slauter, Associate Professor, Department of English Language & Literature, University of Chicago
• Student assistant at the University of Chicago: Brion Drake, Ph.D. student of English

Computational Staff

• Sandra Schloen is the Director of Technology in the Forum for Digital Culture of the University of Chicago and manager of the OCHRE Data Service. She has a degree in computer science and 40 years of professional experience as a software engineer. She is the co-designer and lead developer of the OCHRE platform. She works closely with each CEDAR project team, providing technical consulting and training in the use of OCHRE and creating software enhancements in response to their feedback.
• Miller Prosser is the Director of Online Publications in the Forum for Digital Culture of the University of Chicago and also a Lecturer in the M.A. program in Digital Studies of Language, Culture, and History, for which he teaches the core courses on “Data Management for the Humanities” and “Data Publication for the Humanities.” He earned a Ph.D. in Northwest Semitic Philology from the University of Chicago in 2010 and has been involved in humanities computing for more than ten years, especially in the areas of ancient textual studies and archaeology. He is the primary contact for the CEDAR initiative.

CEDAR Advisors

• David Schloen is the Faculty Director of the Forum for Digital Culture of the University of Chicago. He is a Professor of Archaeology in the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures and the Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations with strong interests in ancient textual studies and digital humanities. He is the co-designer (with Sandra Schloen) of the OCHRE database platform. He is not involved in any particular CEDAR project but he conceived and organized the CEDAR initiative as a whole and provides advice and guidance.
• Paul Funk was the Founder and CEO of Funk Software, Inc., in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is an alumnus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and did graduate work in English literature at the University of Chicago before embarking on a career as a software engineer and entrepreneur. He has been an advisor and financial supporter of the CEDAR initiative since its inception.