The curious identity of Michael Field and its implications for humanities research with the semantic web

This paper uses the case of author Michael Field, the shared writing identity of two late Victorian women, to consider the implications of embracing the semantic web for humanities research. It is argued that the ontologies prevalent today reveal a lack of nuance when it comes to the complex relationships that are the focus of much humanities research, such as the connection of names to persons, particularly with respect to authorship. Further, the current state of ontology use aside, even the sophisticated use of OWL, SKOS, or ontology alignment techniques for linking big semantic web collections stands to hinder humanities research by hiding rather than exposing difference. We use the outlier Michael Field to highlight what much of the valuable work of the humanities is about and in doing so bring to the fore the challenge of formalizing complex social meanings that can otherwise be overlooked or dismissed as a trivial technicality. As a solution the humanities community is encouraged to begin engaging more directly in the construction of semantic web tools and infrastructure.

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