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Staff Profile

Dr James Cummings

Reader in Digital Textual Studies and Late Medieval Literature

Background
About Me

I am the Reader in Digital Textual Studies and Late-Medieval Literature at the School of English Literature, Language, and Linguistics of Newcastle University. My primary areas of academic interest involve investigating technology and standards for digital editing, as well as records of late medieval drama.


Roles and Responsibilities
  • Animating Texts Newcastle University: I am the lead for the ATNU project at Newcastle University which is exploring new frontiers at the cross-roads between traditional scholarly textual editing, digital editing, digital humanities, and computer science.
  • Text Encoding Initiative: From 1 January 2020 - 31 December 2027 I am an elected member of the TEI Consortium's Board of Directors which is the governing body for the Consortium. From 1 January 2005 - 31 December 2019 I was an elected member of the Text Encoding Initiative Consortium's Technical Council, which develops the standard, and I was previously the Technical Council Chair.
  • N8CIR: N8 Computationally Intensive Research, 'Digital Humanities' Theme Lead for Newcastle University, from 2018 to present.
  • The Alan Turing Institute: I was a Fellow of The Alan Turing Institute (the UK's national institute for data science and artificial intelligence) from 2021-2023 and remain Newcastle University representative to the Humanities and Data Science Research Group
  • Records of Early English Drama: I am on the Executive Board of the Records of Early English Drama project. I am especially involved in their latest REED Online collections published using TEI XML. I am also part of the REED East Anglia Editorial Group.
  • DH Awards: I am the founder and main instigator of the annual open DH Awards (a grass-roots digital humanities awareness raising activity). These are entirely openly nominated, openly voted for, annual recognition awards for any digital humanities resource in any language from any place. These have been running since 2012.
  • Digital Medievalist: I was a founding member of Digital Medievalist, a peer-reviewed journal and community of practice for those undertaking digital medieval resource creation, on its executive board from 2003-2012, and its chair from 2009-2012.
  • Digital Humanities at Oxford Summer School: I was the founder and director of the Digital Humanities at Oxford Summer School (DHOxSS) from 2010-2017 up until I left Oxford.
  • Reviewing: I regularly review articles for journals such as Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, the Journal of the Text Encoding Initiative, Digital Humanities Quarterly, Digital Studies, and others. I review abstracts for many conferences but especially JADH, ADHO:Digital Humanities, and TEI conferences. I occasionally review funding bids from a variety of funding bodies.
  • PhD Examining: I have acted as an internal examiner and external examiner for PhDs (and DPhils) at a number of institutions.
  • Advisory Boards: I am on the advisory boards or steering committees of a wide range of journals, projects and initiatives, usually based-on my knowledge and experience of the TEI.
  • Previous Service Roles: From 2021/22 - 2023/24 I was the Senior Tutor for Stage 2 & 3 students in the School of English Literature, Language, and Linguistics, including being Chair of PEC Committee, Member of School Executive Board, Member of Education Committee, and Member of EDI Committee. Prior to that I was Senior Tutor for Stage 1.


Educational Qualifications

My degrees include:


Previous Employment

Before working at Newcastle University I worked in various other UK HE institutions in both academic and academic-related roles. A selection of previous positions include:

  • 2015 – 2017: Senior Academic Research Technology Specialist, Research Support Team, Academic IT, IT Services, University of Oxford
  • 2012 – 2015: Senior Digital Research Specialist, Research Support Team, Academic IT, IT Services, University of Oxford
  • 2010 – 2017: Founding Director of Digital Humanities at Oxford Summer School – IT Services, University of Oxford on behalf of the Digital Humanities at Oxford network
  • 2010 - 2012: Co-Manager of InfoDev (Research Support and Data Solutions) – Oxford University Computing Services, University of Oxford
  • 2008 - 2010: Consultant – Staging the Henrician Court Project, Oxford Brookes University
  • 2008 - 2010: Senior Research Technologist – Research Technologies Service, Oxford University Computing Services, University of Oxford
  • 2007 - 2017: Associated Researcher – Electronic Textual Cultures Lab, University of Victoria, Canada
  • 2005 - 2006: Part-Time Lecturer – Centre for the Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
  • 2004 - 2007: Part-Time Lecturer – Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London
  • 2003 - 2008: Research Officer – Oxford Text Archive and Arts and Humanities Data Service, Oxford University Computing Services, University of Oxford
  • 2001 - 2003: Associate Tutor – School of English and American Studies, University of East Anglia
  • 2000 - 2003: Research Associate – CURSUS Project, School of Music, University of East Anglia
  • 1998 - 2000: Associate Tutor – Department of English, University of Hull
  • 1995 - 2000: Postgraduate Lecturer – School of English, University of Leeds


Research


Overview/Research Interests

  • Digital Publishing research interests:  Animating Text Newcastle University (ATNU); digital scholarly editing (theory and practice); markup and text encoding; strategies for full-text digitisation; the Guidelines of the Text Encoding Initiative;  meta-schemas and project customisation; markup theory; theories of text, concepts of digital texts; collaborative digital textual editing; digital publication frameworks; concepts of peer review in a digital context; and XML technologies for digital research and publication
  • Digital Humanities research interests:  legacy data migration; infrastructural support for digital research; digital archiving; data curation and the long-term preservation of digital resources (theory and practice); digital intellectual property rights, sustainability for digital resources, representations of technology etc.
  • Medieval Literature research interests: archival sources for digital literary studies; medieval dramatic texts; non-cycle plays; The Conversion of St Paul; the Records of Early English Drama project; REED research in East Anglia; para-dramatic activity including processions, waits and minstrelsy; participatory and practical research in early drama studies; manuscript description and editing; material culture and manuscript studies; manuscript relationships to early print culture; palaeography, etc.
  • Other Interests: In addition to the widespread interests above, I'm generally interested in the representation of technology as catalysts for social change in the work of fantasy writers like Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams.   


Postgraduate Supervision

I welcome applications for postgraduate research supervision from students whose research proposals intersect with any of the topics above but especially topics that intersect with :

  • scholarly digital editing, how critical editions should function in a digital world
  • digital publishing, markup, and our complex digital interactions with text(s) 
  • late medieval drama, records of drama, medieval performance, performance places
  • late medieval texts and digital representations of them


Current Research Projects

My current research often relates to the Guidelines of the Text Encoding Initiative, the encoding and publication of scholarly digital editions, and digital editions of late medieval drama. I am working with the Records of Early English Drama - East Anglia editorial group as I am contributing records relating to communities in north-west Norfolk. I am part of the ATNU: Animating Texts Newcastle University project and am helping build capacity in the area of digital textual studies. In addition I have a number of ongoing research projects (see below).


LAB|Pro and NU-LAB

I am a co-investigator of the LAB|Pro partnership that I am a co-investigator of the has recently been awarded one of three, $1 million USD grants from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (in partnership with the US National Historical Publications and Records Commission) to develop a publishing co-operative for digital editions that supports an expanding collection of peer-reviewed digital scholarly works. This international project is led by Diane Jakacki at Bucknell University and also partners with Susan Brown of the Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory. My own NU-LAB sub-project involves testing and improving the software to cope with the kinds of scholarly digital editions we are making in Newcastle and feed into the containerisation and deployment of the software with the help of research software engineers in Newcastle's Digital Institute.


Evolving Hands

I am the Newcastle University PI for Evolving Hands, an AHRC/NEH-funded transatlantic project on New Directions in Digital Scholarship for Cultural Institutions. This project looks at the workflows of Handwritten Text Recognition and the TEI XML exported from the process. See the Evolving Hands website for more information.


JUMPSTART

I was the PI for the British Academy-funded Talent Development Awards project on JUMPSTART: Joining Up Methodological Practices for Studying Texts with Advanced Research Training. This looks at methods of digital pedagogy and ran a number of week-long digital humanities training events. For more information see the JUMPSTART Project website.


Previous Projects

A selected list of some of the earlier academic projects I've previously been a member of include: 

  • Digital REED: Records of Early English Drama is a long-term international project transcribing and publishing extracts relating to early drama. I am responsible for the creation of its TEI schema as part of helping to improve its digital workflow, with Sally-Beth MacLean (REED, University of Toronto) and others. Role: TEI Academic Consultant, Member of the Executive Board 
  • DiXiT: an EU-funded Marie Curie Innovative Training network on digital scholarly editing with Andreas Speer (University of Cologne) and others. Role: Oxford Scientist-in-charge 
  • DEMM: an Erasmus training programme on Digital Editing of Medieval Manuscripts. Role: Text Encoding Lecturer
  • Stationers' Register Online: Full text transcription and TEI encoding of the Stationers' Register with Ian Gadd (Bath Spa University), Giles Bergel (University of Oxford), Pip Willcox (Bodleian Libraries). Role: Technical Director and TEI Specialist
  • TEI Simple: This Mellon-funded project has produced a TEI customisation (TEI simplePrint) based on large text corpora such as the Oxford Text Archive and Text Creation Partnership and developed processing model documentation for TEI customisations, with Sebastian Rahtz (University of Oxford), Martin Mueller (Northwestern University), Brian Pytlik-Zillig (University of Nebraska). Role: TEI Academic Consultant, TEI Council Liaison  
  • iSicily: Building a digital corpus of Sicilian inscriptions, with Jonathan Prag (University of Oxford). Role: Overall Academic IT Lead and Technical Project Manager 
  • LEAP: Livingstone-online Enhancement and Access Project, with Adrian Wisnicki (Centre for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska – Lincoln). Role: Academic Partner and TEI Consultant
  • Wandering Jew's Chronicle Research Archive: This project led by Giles Bergel (University of Oxford) provided an archive and digital critical edition of an unusual English popular ballad printed between 1634 and 1830 in numerous different formats and editions. Role: Programmer, Technical Project Manager, and TEI Consultant.
  • Bodleian First Folio: Digitization, full text transcription, and TEI encoding of the Bodleian's First Folio, with Pip Willcox (Bodleian Libraries). Role: TEI Academic Consultant. 
  • William Godwin's Diary: Award-winning digitization, full text transcription, and TEI encoding of the William Godwin's diary 1788-1836, with Mark Philp (Warwick). Role: Technical Lead, Developer, and TEI Academic Consultant 
  • Holinshed's Chronicles: Digital texts of both 1577 and 1587 editions of Holinshed's Chronicles with Ian Archer, Paulina Kewes, and Felicity Heal (University of Oxford); Role: TEI and Technical Consultant 
  • French Oral Narrative Corpus: Creation of a linguistic corpus of oral storytelling in French with Janice Carruthers (Queen's University, Belfast). Role: TEI Consultant
  • ENRICH: European Networking Resources and Information Concerning Cultural Heritage; Multi-national EU eContent project to create seamless access to manuscript descriptions across Europe, led from the National Library of Czech Republic. Role: Senior Academic Researcher 
  • Staging the Henrician Court: an interdisciplinary project on early drama building on performance, literary analysis and historical research with Tom Betteridge (Oxford Brookes, now Brunel) and Greg Walker (Edinburgh). Role: IT Consultant 
  • CURSUS Project: Transcription, editing, and publication of medieval Benedictine liturgical service books with David Chadd (University of East Anglia). Role: Research Associate and Technical Lead 


Teaching

2024 - 25: (Research Leave - Semester 2)

  • SEL2232: Stagecraft in Early Drama
  • SEL3417: Dissertation: Digital Edition


2023 - 24:

  • SEL2232: Stagecraft in Early Drama
  • SEL3417: Dissertation: Digital Edition
  • SEL1004: Introduction to Literary Studies 2
  • SEL1023: Transformations
  • PG – SEL8674: Research Methods


2022 - 23:

  • SEL2232: Stagecraft in Early Drama
  • SEL3417: Dissertation: Digital Edition
  • SEL1004: Introduction to Literary Studies 2
  • SEL1023: Transformations
  • PG – SEL8688: Data and Truth 
  • PG – SEL8674: Research Methods
  • PG – HSS8004: Qualitative Methodology in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
  • [Senior Tutor For Stage 2&3]


2021 - 22: 

  • SEL3417: Dissertation by Digital Edition 
  • SEL3418: Stagecraft: Sex, Subversion, and Salvation in Early Drama 
  • SEL1004: Introduction to Literary Studies 2
  • SEL1023: Transformations
  • PG – SEL8688: Data and Truth 
  • PG – SEL8674: Research Methods
  • PG – HSS8004: Qualitative Methodology in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
  • [Senior Tutor For Stage 2&3]


2020 - 21: (Research Leave, Semester 2)

  • SEL3055: Chaucer, Shakespeare, and the book of the future 
  • [Senior Tutor For Stage 1]


2019 - 20:

  • SEL1004: Introduction to Literary Studies 2
  • SEL1023: Transformations
  • SEL1030: Close Reading
  • SEL2210: Independent Research Project
  • SEL3362: Dissertations in English Literature
  • SEL3377: Dissertation in English Literature & History
  • CLA3090: Special Study on an Aspect of Classical Influence in English Literature
  • SEL3055: Chaucer, Shakespeare, and the book of the future
  • PG – HSS8004: Qualitative Methodology in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences


2018 - 19:

  • SEL3055: Chaucer, Shakespeare, and the book of the future
  • SEL1023: Transformations
  • SEL3362: Dissertations in English Literature
  • SEL3377: Dissertation in English Literature & History
  • PG – HSS8004 MA: Qualitative Methodology in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences 


2017 - 18:

  • SEL3383: From the Black Death to the Tudors:Traditions and transformations in medieval literature
  • SEL1023: Transformations
  • SEL1030: Close Reading
  • SEL3362 Dissertations in English Literature 
  • PG – SEL8542 MA: Research Matters 2


PhD Supervisions

  • Peter Hebden "Poetry in Digital Media: Investigating the Remediation of Poetry through Critical and Creative Practice"; co-supervisor with Linda Anderson, 2017-2022


Publications