The Future of This Digital Humanities project

As a student in Boston College’s MA in English program, I believe that it’s incredibly important to provide greater access to underrepresented writers while also creating spaces for students to interpret their writings as they see fit. This project was successful in that we were able to digitize an entire collection of Akiko’s work, but there is still so much room for growth. If I had the resources to continue with this project, I would love to fully digitize other versions of the Midaregami, including the two incorporated into this project and Tangled Hair: Selected Tanka from Midaregami (trans. Sanford Goldstein and Seishi Shinoda, 2002). Then, users could pick which edition(s) best suit their needs and navigate between them, creating a more well-rounded understanding of Akiko’s 399 tankas.

In addition to digitizing more translations of the Midaregami, I would digitize the work of other Japanese women writers, perhaps putting these versions into a larger database dedicated to twentieth century Japanese literature. It was difficult to find relevant sources for background information about Akiko, and I believe that a larger, more sophisticated container for these writings would improve scholars’ ability to analyze women writers of this era.

If this project were expanded, I believe that it would also be important to learn more about EditionCrafter’s style and formatting restrictions when pushed through GitHub pages, as some options—such as italicization or a dual-panel display—were difficult to incorporate into this project. With more time, this could improve the overall navigation of the edition.

There is only so much that can be completed in a one-semester capstone project, but I am pleased with the progress that has been made in this project and would love to see other scholars continue with digitization and/or research about Akiko.