Digital dimension

Giorgio Buccellati – July 2023

background links, e.g. to paleolithic – Buccellati 2018 Voegelin as referred to in 6

An annotated bibliogaphy – and beyond

The website serves a function similar to that of any annotated bibliography, in the sense that each title is accompanied by a bref summary and occasionally by some critical remarks. There are also more extended treatments or reviews, which may compare two or more titles. It is also similar to an annotated bibliography in that it aims to cover specific topics which are described briefly in each case.

We go, however, beyond the dimensions of a normal annotated bibliography because we seek to exploit the digital dimension in a way that widens substantially the scope of the presentation. This is described in more detail in the hub website 4banks.net, and here I will only point out what is more immediately relevant for the current website.

A digital database

The website contains bibliographical data that can be accessed the way one normally accesses databases, i.e., in a consultation mode. This is made possible in three distinct ways:

the record section contains a list of titles in alphabetical order (with excerpts and more extensive reviews as well) – one may search for a given author, e.g., Thorkild Jacobsen and one will find seven of his publication mentioned and annotated, with a link to an excerpt.
the search function allows for quick retrieval of any word of interest – e. g., a search for “anthropomorphism” yields 27 entries;
the various indices (topical, chronological, authors, multi-nodal) offer selected references for the terms in each category – e.g., a search for “anthropomorphism” yields only seven entries which were deemed of special interest by the authors.

A digital narrative

Beyond serving for consultation as a databse, the website asks to be read sequentially, in a special digital discourse mode. This is especially developed in the ARGUMENT section, where the core chapter develops the central topic for each distinct version of the website. But there are also narrative threads in the other portions of the ARGUMENT section, and there is especially a running thread that overarches the individual sections of the website, in an interplanar mode. See below for an example.

Interplanarity

The sequential narrative thread unfolds in a supralinear fashion, in this and the other websites of the Four Banks cluster, meaning that the multiple levels or planes of the website(s) are accessed not through anecdotal hyperlinks that target details, but through systemic hyperlinks that presuppose the full argument developed in each distinct plane.

An example of interplanar narrative: the absolute

A judge decreeing the fate of a defendant.

Audiences

There are two main levels at which the website can be approached:

the database level which will be immediately accessible to any audience, and
the digital discourse level, which will require an audience with a special degree of attention and preparation.