Minerva

MINERVA SYSTEMS
SELECTIONS
Minerva Systems home page
Chapter 1 of The Loom of Minerva: An Introduction to Computer Projects for the Literary Scholar, "A Guide to the Labyrinth"
Images from a demonstration of the MINERVA System
"The Eureka Machine for Composing Hexameter Latin Verses" (1845)
"Verbal Patterns in Hesiod's Theogony"
NEW SELECTIONS! Selected Excerpts from Chapters of Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns
"Thought Clusters in Early Greek Oral Poetry"
"Holy Places", a study of myths of landmarks
"Epilogue to 'Holy Places': the World Trade Center as a Mythic Place"
Writings on Building and Architecture
"Ancient Myths in Modern Movies"
Archived "Quotations of the Month"
Write e-mail to Cora Angier Sowa
Athens

Pantes anthropoi tou eidenai oregontai phusei. semeion d' he ton aistheseon agapesis: kai gar choris tes chreias agapontai d' hautas... ("Everyone by nature desires to have knowledge. A sign of this is our love of the senses; aside from their usefulness we love them for themselves..." --Aristotle, Metaphysics I.1)

(Illustration: Athens in the nineteenth century, from an old engraving)



WELCOME TO MINERVA SYSTEMS

Welcome to Minerva Systems, an enterprise created by Dr. Cora Angier Sowa. It is a product of the author's longtime search for connections between the aesthetic and the technological. It is also devoted to examining the continuity of influence of Greek and Roman Classical civilization, and to exploring how ancient insights can be applied to today's world.

Athena -- the Roman Minerva -- was, we remember, the patroness both of intellectual wisdom and of crafts and technology.

This site presents a selection of writings by the author on some interconnected topics: Classical literature, computers and humanities, myths of machines, music, movies, architecture, and technology, and the aesthetic appreciation of the marvels of the built environment.


Athena the warrior

Athena - the Roman Minerva - was goddess of both intellectual wisdom and technical crafts. Accompanied by her owl, she was also protector of the city of Athens.

NEWS OF MINERVA SYSTEMS

Announcement of the Third Chicago Colloquium on Digital Humanities, November, 2008

We are delighted to report that the Third Chicago Colloquium on Digital Humanities will be held at the University of Chicago on November 1-3, 2008.

The theme of the third Chicago DHCS Colloquium is "'Making Sense'- an exploration of how meaning is created and apprehended at the transition of the digital and the analog." ("Sense-making" is a field concerned with finding meaning in vaguely defined material.) You can learn more about the Colloquium on its Web site at http://dhcs.uchicago.edu.

Minerva Systems will again be attending the Colloquium.


MINERVA Presentation at the Second Chicago Colloquium on Digital Humanities, October, 2007

Northwestern University

University Hall, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois

Read the demo from the 2007 Colloquium

In October, 2007, I had the pleasure of demonstrating new features of the MINERVA System for Study of Literary Texts at the Second Chicago Colloquium on Digital Humanities, hosted by Northwestern University. (See below for news of the Third DHCS Colloquium.)

The emphasis of the 2007 Colloquium was on using digital materials in a collaborative environment, and on discerning what studies are better undertaken by using digitized versions of materials such as images and text than by using the original non-digitized sources. The MINERVA demonstration for 2007 highlighted new additions to the Systems Analysis Tutorial, which aid the user in steps to planning and carrying out a project in an organized way. These techniques are adapted from the commercial and scientific fields, where teams of persons who may be working in distant locations must coordinate their efforts.

Click on the button below to see the MINERVA demonstration handout from the 2007 DHCS Colloquium.

Chicago skyline from NW University

The Chicago skyline, rising Oz-like across Lake Michigan from Northwestern University

Read the demo from the 2006 Colloquium

The MINERVA demonstration handout from the first DHCS Colloqium, held in November 2006 in Ida Noyes Hall at the University of Chicago, can also be read on another page of this Web site.

Click on the button below to see the demonstration handout from the 2006 DHCS Colloquium.

Ida Noyes Hall

Ida Noyes Hall, University of Chicago

QUOTATIONS OF THE MONTH

Every month there will be a new classical or other quotation in this space, appropriate to the season or to current events. Previous quotations (beginning in September, 2004) are archived in "Archived Quotations of the Month". For a list of these quotations, see below under "Archived Quotations."

Quotation for June 2008: for the summer solstice, a tipsy celebrant looks at the heavens in Ovid's Fasti

the constellation Orion
The constellation of the hunter Orion, with his dogs Canis Major and Canis Minor, in Burritt's Geography of the Heavens, New York, 1856.)

A drunk looks for Orion's belt on the wrong night

Ovid's Fasti or Roman Calendar extends only from January to June. We don't know if he never finished the year, or if the rest of the poem has been lost. His entry for the summer solstice, which falls in June, is short. A drunken man, on his way home from a shrine outside the city (a celebration of some sort?) scans the heavens in vain for Orion's belt, a few days early. (As a note in Frazer's Loeb edition explains, "True morning rising of middle star was on June 21, apparent, July 13. The summer solstice was on June 24."). The constellation of Orion is best seen in winter, when it is one of the most prominent features of the night sky. The three stars of his belt and the sword hanging from it are instantly recognizable. One of the celestial objects in his sword is not a star but a nebula, which appears as a fuzzy blob to the naked eye, but even through simple binoculars, individual tiny stars can be seen forming in a hazy cloud, a mini-Hubble picture of a distant world.

The story of Orion

There are various myths of Orion, the gigantic hunter, with conflicting versions of his life, death, and eventual apotheosis as a constellation. Homer's Calypso depicts him as the dawn goddess Eos' lover, who was killed by Artemis (Odyssey 5,121-4). Calypso cites him as an example of how the gods begrudge goddesses that they mate with mortal men. Another story has him slain by Artemis because he insulted her, or that he was killed by a scorpion sent by the goddess Earth because he boasted that he would kill all the animals. He may have been Boeotian, as there are many legends about him from Boeotia. Other stories connect him with Chios. In any case, he now roams the heavens with his faithful hunting dogs, Canis Major and Canis Minor. The prey that he hunts, Taurus the bull and Lepus the hare, are close by. (Scorpio the scorpion is kept far on the other side!)

The tipsy astonomer

Here is Ovid's amateur astronomer:

Lo, a fellow returning, not very sober, from a suburban shrine
shouts the following words at the stars:
"Your belt is hidden, and tomorrow perhaps it will be hidden,
but after that, Orion, it will be visible to me."
But if he were not drunk, he would have said
that the time of the solstice would fall on that same day.

Ovid, Fasti, 6.785-790.


Archived Quotations

Earlier quotations, appropriate to current situations as indicated, available under "Archived Quotations," are:

TRADITIONAL THEMES AND THE HOMERIC HYMNS IS AGAIN IN PRINT. SELECTIONS AVAILABLE FOR FREE READING ON THIS SITE

Dionysos in ship

One of the mythic themes analyzed in Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns is the Epiphany of a God.

Illustration: Dionysos in a boat with grape vines and dolphins, cup by Exekias, about 540 B.C., Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlung, from a photo by R. Schoder, S.J. It is reproduced in Chapter 9, "Epiphany of a God and Institution of Rites."


Book: Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns

Cora Angier Sowa is the author of Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns published by Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, Wauconda, IL (1984).

The book, out of print for a while, is again available by "on-demand" production. Contact the publisher for information.

New selections are available on this Web site for free reading. You can read Chapters 1 ("Introduction") and 10 ("Conclusion: the Place of the Hymns in the Ancient Greek Oral Tradition"), Appendix I ("Outlines of Themes Identified in the Hymns"). You can also see diagrams of the themes as they appear in the Hymns.

Article: "Thought Clusters in Early Greek Oral Poetry"

An article, by Cora Angier Sowa and John Sowa, describes in detail the quantitative and mathematical methods used on the computer to identify thematic elements in Hesiod and the Homeric Hymns. Material from this study was later integrated into into the more comprehensive Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns. Click on "Thought Clusters in Early Greek Oral Poetry". A version of the CLUMP cluster analysis program used to identify thematic repetitions is now also being integrated into the MINERVA suite of programs in the self-study CD The Loom of Minerva.

THE MINERVA SYSTEM FOR STUDY OF LITERARY TEXTS, INTRODUCED A IN SELF-STUDY CD The Loom of Minerva: An Introduction to Computer Projects for the Literary Scholar

Minerva and Labyrinth

The Loom of Minerva is a self-study CD that introduces the Minerva System for Study of Literary Texts, which is a set of tools, some automated and some semi-automated, for planning and carrying out a project in literary study. The Loom of Minerva contains both text chapters and a set of programs. The first chapter, "A Guide to the Labyrinth" (now much revised), can be read on this Web site, and images of two demonstrations of the system from 2006 and 2007 can also be seen.

Illustrations: Statue of Minerva, Marmorbad, Kassel, Germany (photo by J.F. Sowa); remains of the building that was perhaps the original Labyrinth of King Minos, Knossos, Crete (photo by C.A. Sowa).


Read about it!

My thanks to all those who have reviewed and used my self-study CD course on using computers and quantitative methods in the study of literature, The Loom of Minerva: An Introduction to Computer Projects for the Literary Scholar, and my thanks to those who continue to give me comments.

You can read Chapter 1, "A Guide to the Labyrinth: The Problem and Its Solution" on this Web site. (Note: this chapter now describes a greater variety of ways to structure a project, e.g., top-down, bottom-up, etc. It will continue to be revised.) You can also see images from two demonstrations of the MINERVA System, from 2006 (emphasizing individual applications programs), given at the First Chicago Colloquium on Digital Humanities at the University of Chicago and 2007 (emphasizing new project planning programs) given at the Second Chicago Colloquium on Digital Humanities at the Northwestern University.

The MINERVA System

The MINERVA System for Study of Literary Texts is a set of tools, some automated, some not automated, for planning and carrying out a project in literary study. Methods of Systems Analysis, borrowed from the scientific and commercial world, are adapted to the study of literature. This methodology emphasizes the use of diagramming techniques and modular design, offering a way to construct a project as a set of units or modules that can be worked on separately and moved around without disturbing the whole. A project is defined as an enterprise that has a goal and an organized way of achieving that goal.

The Loom of Minerva combines the methods of Systems Analysis with the insights of traditional belles-lettres literary criticism. All analysis takes as its point of departure the value of the piece of literature itself to the critic and the reader, as well as the historic, social, or aesthetic qualities attached to it. These alone confer significance on any work of scholarship. Examples grow directly from study of various works of literature, from Vergil to Coleridge to Baudelaire to Victor Hugo to Edna St. Vincent Millay and Gertrude Stein, and works of criticism from Sainte-Beuve to Swinburne to Gertrude Stein (criticizing her own work).

Emphasis is placed on analyzing the language of criticism itself, analyzing exactly what we mean by such terms as "beautiful," "ugly," "pompous," "like a spring garden," etc. By defining our terms with an exactness that can be quantified, we learn to give precision to our thoughts, whether using a computer or not.

What is in The Loom of Minerva

The CD contains both a set of narrative chapters and a set of programs, called the MINERVA System for Study of Literary Texts. The narrative chapters explain and amplify the programs, and the programs illustrate the chapters. The programs are provided in both executable form and source code, to satisfy both non-programmer scholars and programmers who want to play with the code.

  • The programs.

    The programs are in two groups, The Tutorial in Systems Analysis and the MINERVA Program Suite. The Tutorial in Systems Analysis takes the student through the steps to plan and design a project, beginning with the Selection of a Topic, going through the activities of drawing hierarchical and flow charts, and continuing to the final Evaluation of Results. The screens are interactive, so that the student can practice designing his or her own project.

    The MINERVA Program Suite is an interactive suite of programs designed for use by scholars and critics of literature. These programs, which can be used with texts of English, Classical, or other literatures, currently contains sixteen programs: eight to perform different types of literary analysis, and eight "OwlData" programs that the scholar can use to create or adapt data for the analytical programs. Currently available are programs to make concordances, search for words and cooccurring words, do statistical studies, perform cluster analysis, and compose original paragraphs. Developed in modular fashion, MINERVA is intended to be expandable, so that in the future more modules can be added to do more things. The latest to be developed is a program to perform cluster analysis based on the program described in Sowa and Sowa "Thought Clusters in Early Greek Oral Poetry."

  • The narrative chapters

    The narrative chapters can be read like a book, or they can be entered directly from the programs by clicking on links on the screens.

    The first four text chapters of The Loom of Minerva introduce the MINERVA System. They demonstrate the steps for planning and developing a project, and provide many literary examples for using the programs. Historical chapters of The Loom of Minerva analyze projects past and present, that have used computers and other mechanical devices in the study of literature (including the Eureka Machine for composing Latin hexameters). Also described are works of literature that were inspired by machines, like the short story "Moxon's Master" by Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914), in which a chess-playing robot murders its inventor. Four final chapters of the book are for techies only: a programming manual of Visual Basic, using literary examples, for those gung-ho readers who want to understand the arcana behind the MINERVA programs included with the book.

MINERVA stands for Model INteractive Engine for Recognizing Verbal Artifice.

Advantages of the MINERVA System

The MINERVA programs do not require the use of data that is in a proprietary format. They use plain ASCII text, such as that downloaded from the Internet. The OwlData programs can be used to put downloaded or scanned text in the correct format for the MINERVA programs. The mathematics and statistics used are fairly elementary, such as can be understood as an introduction to basic concepts of what the computer and quantified methods can do. The programs are open-source, as they are intended to be extensible.

For more information:

If you are interested in finding out more about the Loom of Minerva or the MINERVA System, contact me at casowa@aol.com.

Improvements to MINERVA: using MINERVA programs to study Shelley and Milton, Summer, 2007

Joe and Frankie Raben Cora Sowa and Joe Raben

A visit combines work and relaxation: (1) Frankie and Joe Raben, (2) Cora Sowa and Joe Raben, 2007.

In 2007, improvements were made to the MINERVA System programs, making both programs and documentation easier to use. For his many suggestions, I particularly thank Joseph Raben of the English Department, Queens College, NY (emeritus), who is using the CLUMPS program of the MINERVA System in his study of intertextuality, comprising an analysis of the echoes of Milton in the poems of Shelley.

In the summer, I visited Joe Raben in Rhode Island where he now lives. Work on applying the computer to poetry was combined with a relaxing visit with Joe and his wife Frankie, also retired from the English Department at Queens College. (See pictures above, taken at the Rabens' home outside Providence, RI.)



Untermyer fountain

Historical chapters of The Loom of Minerva describe projects using the computer in the study of literature, including the author's Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns (see below). One of the thematic elements analyzed is "Maidens Dancing and Picking Flowers."

Illustration: the Untermyer Fountain, Central Park, New York City, sculpture by Walter Schott, ca. 1910 (photo by C.A. Sowa).


"Verbal Patterns in Hesiod's Theogony"

The Muses

In orally composed poetry like Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days, there was no written text (the alphabet being barely known at the time, around 750 B.C.). The bard, like a jazz musician, recomposed his story each time (to a melody now lost to us), using stock phrases or "formulas" and repeated scenes. Since the story was enjoyed not by reading but by hearing it, there were no punctuation marks or chapter headings to tell listeners where they were in the narrative or its episodes. The skilled singer used, instead, repeated words and phrases to serve as "oral punctuation" to articulate the story and provide emphasis for important themes and concepts.

Reissued here is my article Verbal Patterns in Hesiod's Theogony, which explores the use of verbal repetition in Hesiod's tale of the origins of the gods.

The Eureka Machine for Composing Hexameter Latin Verses (1845)

Eureka machine

We think of computers as being very modern, although calculating machines and computer-like devices have been around for a long time. In particular, we think of using such a machine to do such non-scientific tasks as composing poetry as a modern concept. But in 1845, John Clark built the Eureka Machine for Composing Hexameter Latin Verse. It still exists in a museum in England. Read about the Eureka Machine and read the original description of it from the Illustrated London News of July, 1845.

There is more about early computers and their mechanical ancestors in the self-study CD The Loom of Minerva: An Introduction to Computer Projects for the Literary Scholar, described above.

Ships named Minerva

Sea battle 1776

Classically named ships have a long tradition. Illustration: "The PHOENIX and the ROSE, engaged by the ENEMY'S FIRE SHIPS & GALLEYS, on the 16th Augt 1776. Engraved from the Original Picture by D. Serres, from a Sketch of Sir James Wallace's." Lithograph by G. Hayward for D.T. Valentine's Manual 1776.

"Minerva" has long been a popular name for ships. There are cruise ships named "Minerva," including Greek vessels whose owners chose that name as a synonym for their own city patroness Athena. Warships named "Minerva" have graced the navies of Europe from the time of Nelson and Napoleon to the present, whether British "Minerva" or French "Minerve."

It is an interesting choice, considering that Athena, with her gift of the olive, defeated Poseidon, lord of the sea, with his gift of the horse, in the contest to be patron deity of Athens. (See the depiction of Athena and Poseidon below.)

The name "Minerva" for a British warship belongs in the splendid tradition of naming vessels after names from Classical history and mythology. Along with names like "Invincible," "Audacious," "Irresistible," "Insolent," "Victory," and "Dreadnought," we find "Gorgon," "Phoenix," "Achilles," "Apollo," "Dryad," "Endymion," "Hector," "Helicon," "Medusa," "Meleager," and, famously, "Arethusa." The most famous ship named for the Sicilian nymph Arethusa was known for her victory over the French "Belle Poulle" in 1778. Training ships for over a century inherited the name, one after the other.

A frigate "Minerva" participated in the Battle of Cape St. Vincent against the navy of Napoleon on February 14, 1797. The marine painter Thomas Buttersworth (the elder) painted a portrait of "Minerva" in 1810, and the "Minerva" Pub in Hull, England (built in 1831) uses the frigate's symbol, the owl, on its sign. Of course, some ships have been named "Athena" and "Poseidon," too; there was a movie about such a ship called The Poseidon Adventure.

There is a further connection between ships and this Minerva Systems site. In the self-study CD The Loom of Minerva (described above), an analysis of Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is used as a case study to demonstrate methods of Systems Analysis and computer techniques.

A feminist note on the gender of ships: Because of the living qualities of ships, I like to refer to a ship as "she" rather than "it." While some may compare a vessel to a woman because of the supposedly capricious nature of both (although there seems nothing wrong with an occasional playful moment), I think that this view overlooks other qualities. Ships, like women, are beautiful, swift, intelligent, and powerful. I am glad to acclaim them as my sisters!

Sea battle 1840

"Attack on Sidon by Commodore Charles Napier." The battle took place in September, 1840. Sir Charles Napier was a lineal descendant of John Napier, inventor of Napierian logarithms, whose mathematical insights led to the invention of the slide rule, itself an ancestor of the modern computer.

The ships in the picture are identified along the bottom as H.M.S. "Gorgon" (flag), H.M.S. "Thunderer" (84 guns), Turkish Corvette (20 g.), Austrian frigate "Guerriera," H.M. Brig "Wasp" (16 g.), H.M.S.S. "Stromboli."


Vase painting by Amasis

Signed vase painting by the Athenian potter/painter Amasis (6th cent. B.C.), depicting Athena and Poseidon. The two figures are labeled ATHENAIA and POSEIDON. The inscription down the middle reads AMASIS MEPOIESEN ("Amasis made me"). Amasis may well have been African. (Illustration from a lithograph by Kaeppelin et Cie., ca. 1840. The actual vase is in the Cabinet des Médailles, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris.)


Myths of landmarks: Pennsylvania Station and Times Square as centers of the universe, the World Trade Center as a Mythic Place

World Trade Center portrait

The World Trade Center was a sacred place long before it was blown up by terrorists. Lower Manhattan was the sacred land of the Lenape Indians, who made their community and buried their dead there. The modern World Trade Center, with its iconic double-towered shape (a nation's gateway, a cosmic tuning-fork?) was a symbol to the world of universal aspirations and longings. As a center of communications (with its towering antenna) and of transportation (as a hub of rail transportation) it had the mana or spiritual power of the crossroads, the traditional meeting place watched over by the gods of trade.

The WTC is not sacred just because it, along with its inhabitants, was destroyed; it was destroyed because it was sacred. Today, Mercury returns, as the god of communication and of commerce, along with the spirits of all who have lived and died there.


Essays and reviews on building and architecture

Among the selections on this site is the previously published "Holy Places", a study of myths of landmarks. In addition, there is an epilogue to that essay, on "The World Trade Center as a Mythic Place". This piece continues the author's interest in relating ancient ideas to things that we care about in the modern world.

You can also read two of the author's previously published book reviews on architecture, on Alison Sky and Michelle Stone's Unbuilt America and Albert Mehrabian's Public Places and Private Spaces.

About the Author

Self portrait with train

The author, an aficionado of trains, next to a locomotive of the Big Trees & Pacific Railroad, Santa Cruz, CA.

Cora Angier Sowa has combined humanities and technology for many years. She has a BA in Latin and an MA in Classics from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a PhD in Classical Philology from Harvard University. She spent a year studying archaeology at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. She taught Greek and Roman literature and history at Mt. Holyoke, Vassar, and Brooklyn Colleges. For a number of years, she was a programmer/analyst at Chemical (now Chase) Bank in New York. She has taught classes in computers and humanities at the College of Staten Island and at St. John's University in Queens, New York. She served twice on the Committee on Computer Activities of the American Philological Association, once as chairperson of the committee. She was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship (for study in Greece) and of a grant from the American Council of Learned Societies (for work on computers and ancient Greek literature).

In addition to the book Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns (described above), Dr. Sowa has published articles and reviews on Classics and on the mythology of architecture and motion pictures. A harp player, she is also on the board of trustees of the International Percy Grainger Society , an organization dedicated to preserving the home and archives in White Plains, New York of Percy Grainger -- composer, piano virtuoso, collector of folk songs, and inventor of an early mechanical music synthesizer. Dr. Sowa is Webmaster for the Grainger web site. Dr. Sowa now lives in Croton-on-Hudson NY, and in New York City, with her husband, Dr. John F. Sowa, an expert in Artificial Intelligence and computer design, and several cats.

Playing the harp with cat

The author plays the harp for an appreciative audience (handsome cat-about-town Feliz Sowa).

All selections on this site, unless otherwise identified, are copyright by Cora Angier Sowa.

Send e-mail   Send e-mail to Cora Angier Sowa.

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