Projects page

Papers and presentations

Pet Theories

Papers and presentations

All my work is authored in XML and produced using XML/XSLT technologies.

This is a selective listing of papers, projects and presentations at public venues or on line:

Balisage conference

Since 2008, Balisage: The Markup Conference (run by my former employer, Mulberry Technologies, Inc.) has been the premier conference for researchers in markup languages and related technologies., My contributions of technical support to the conference have included designing and engineering the conference Proceedings.

In 2012, I delivered a paper and demonstration of LMNL syntax parsing: the paper is in the Proceedings with a packaged demonstration.

In 2011, my contribution was Abstract generic microformats for coverage, comprehensiveness, and adaptability. Paper and slides are in the Proceedings.

In 2009, I gave the paper How to Play XML: Markup Technologies as Nomic Game. See the paper here and the slides here.

Digital Humanities Quarterly (DHQ)

Since its founding in 2007 I have served, with Julia Flanders (Editor in Chief) and Melissa Terras (General Editor) as General Editor of Digital Humanities Quarterly, to which I have also occasionally contributed opinion pieces. Look me up on our authors page.

ACH/ALLC and Digital Humanities Events

I've presented papers, posters and demonstrations at ACH/ALLC conferences in Bergen, Norway (1996); Glasgow, Scotland (2000); Tuebingen, Germany (2002); Athens GA (2003); Gothenburg, Sweden (2004); Victoria BC (2005); Urbana-Champaign IL (2007); and London (2010).

In 2012, I was invited to give the opening address to a workshop at Brown University, Data Modeling and Knowledge Organization in the Humanites (sponsored by the NEH, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and Brown University Libraries). See my slides, with a writeup (in PDF; this is a large file since the images are at a resolution for zooming).

See documentation, with associated demonstration of overlap processing in XML, for my 2010 paper Towards Hermeneutic Markup: an Architectural Outline, presented July 9 2010 at Digital Humanities 2010 (King's College, London).

The Tübingen poster documented my Amsel project, a little proto-AJAX application I made as a demonstration of the capabilities of XML behind a web browser interface for language study, presenting a dynamic facing translation.

I've also spoken at the TEI Members' Meetings in Chicago IL (2002) on “TEI Beyond the Tag Set” and College Park MD (2007) on “Schema as Markup as Theory”. Preceding the TEI Members' Meeting in 2011 in Würzburg, Franconia, I spoke on “Interoperability in Ten Minutes”; see the Interedition wiki for slides and a writeup.

IDEAlliance XML conferences
“Separating Mapping from Coding in Transformation Tasks.” XML 2007, Boston, Massachussetts. November 2007. (Authored with B. Tommie Usdin.)
“XSLT Throughout the Document Lifecycle.” XML 2005, Atlanta, Georgia. November 2005.
“Way Beyond Powerpoint.” XML 2004, Washington DC. November 2004.
Here's an HTML version with SVG. These are essentially improved speaker's notes with stage directions, bundled with a bunch of SVG and supporting files, delivered as a .zip. (But the SVG is tuned for the Adobe SVG Viewer, then current but now no longer easy to find.)
A more formal prose version in the conference proceedings.
This presentation won a Best Speaker Award.
An early version was presented at ALLC/ACH 2004 (Gothenburg, Sweden).
“XSLT for Quality Checking in an XML workflow.” XML 2003, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. November 2003.
“From HTML to XML.” (Tutorial.) XML 2001, Orlando, Florida. December 2001.
Extreme Markup Languages (2001-2007), Montreal QC
See all my papers at Extreme Proceedings
Also, mirrored here, see:
Human and Machine Sign Systems.
Beyond the “descriptive vs. procedural” distinction. This paper was also printed in Markup Languages: Theory and Practice, Vol. 3 no. 2 (Spring 2001).
In addition, I was the lead designer and engineer of the Extreme Proceedings site.
Other conferences

In addition to numerous appearances not documented here, I gave a keynote address at TriXML 2004 (Raleigh NC) on “XML in the Real World”

LMNL (the Layered Markup and Annotation Language)

More details on the LMNL & Overlap page.

Miscellaneous projects and writings

Pet Theories

You'll have to ask me personally if you want to hear my theory of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings as a parable about proprietary technology.

I have conceptualized an approach to driving on the US Interstate Highway system based on Micronesian navigation. It won't get you there faster, but it will get you there better.

And here's an older thing: a brief metaphysical excursus on the science or art of divination. Divination is the proper and natural application of this technology we call the Internet.