Ludic Algorithms

A review and description of Ramon Llull’s medieval Ars Magna, with attention to its structure and function and to past misunderstandings as to its purpose, helps situate instrumental issues that many digital humanities projects must address today. Among these are problems involved in establishing scholarly primitives and developing the rules or algorithms by which they can be manipulated in creative and revelatory ways. Llull also provides a framework in which to examine the relationship between algorithmic and combinatorial methods and subjective hermeneutic practices, and to demonstrate the utility of performative instruments or environments that share in his design model. This is a model for mechanisms that are generative, emergent, and oriented toward what we would now call humanities interpretation.

Nowviskie, Bethany. "Ludic Algorithms." Ed. Kevin Kee. Pastplay: Teaching and Learning History with Technology Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2014. 139-171. Available: ISBN:978-0-472-11937-0, ["http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/dh.12544152.0001.001"].

This is an uncorrected pre-print. The full volume from which the essay is drawn is available in print and to read freely online at the publication URL listed.

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