Manos Teatrales: Cyber-Paleography and a Virtual World of Spanish Golden Age Theater

FAIN: HD-50578-09

Duke University (Durham, NC 27705-4677)
Margaret R. Greer (Project Director: October 2008 to April 2011)

The development of handwriting identification software using archival materials from Spanish Golden Age theater.

In the Manos Teatrales (Theatrical Hands) project, literary scholars, historians and computer scientists will develop manual and automatic methods for analyzing rich manuscripts collections and their societies, using the treasure-trove of Spanish Golden Age theater and related archival records as a case study. Our cyber-paleography effort will build a live, layered virtual world on the web, open to librarians, scholars and students. A first layer will connect digitally restored images of manuscript pages to descriptions of the pen strokes on paper. Manual and automatic analysis of these descriptions will yield profiles of the writers' handwriting styles and enable semi-automatic inferences based on machine learning methods, about who wrote what and when. A second layer will connect sources to individual and collective histories of the theater community and help scholars understand it. A third layer will describe the techniques of cyber-paleography for both humanists and scientists.

Associated Products

“El proyecto ‘Manos Teatrales,’” in Actas del Congreso Internacional “El Patrimonio del teatro clásico español. Actualidad y perspectivas”, 22-25 July, 2013, Olmedo, Spain, Ed. Germán García, Olmedo: Festival de Olmedo y Universidad de Valladolid, (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: “El proyecto ‘Manos Teatrales,’” in Actas del Congreso Internacional “El Patrimonio del teatro clásico español. Actualidad y perspectivas”, 22-25 July, 2013, Olmedo, Spain, Ed. Germán García, Olmedo: Festival de Olmedo y Universidad de Valladolid,
Author: Margaret R. Greer
Abstract: Publication of an invited report in a panel on new digital tools for study of Spanish classical theater.
Date: 07/25/2013
Conference Name: Congreso Internacional “El Patrimonio del teatro clásico español. Actualidad y perspectivas”

“Risas infernales en palacio: el espacio de El infierno de Juan Rana” (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: “Risas infernales en palacio: el espacio de El infierno de Juan Rana”
Author: Margaret R. Greer
Abstract: Presentation of the identification of the author of theatrical piece about a popular comic figure, called Juan Rana, known to be queer. The techniques developed through "Manos Teatrales" made it possible to identify the author, Francisco de Avellaneda, who was a censor of theatrical pieces, yet wrote this piece, probably for palace performance.
Date: 07/24/2013
Conference Name: “El Patrimonio del teatro clásico español. Actualidad y perspectivas”,

"Mapa de amanuenses teatrales del siglo XVII" (Book Section)
Title: "Mapa de amanuenses teatrales del siglo XVII"
Author: Margaret R. Greer
Editor: Milagros Rodríguez Caceres et all
Abstract: The published version of my plenary presentation on the range of copyists of the 3000 +/- surviving Spanish early modern theatrical manuscripts. They included dramatists, copyists who made clean copies for them, theater company owners, actors, professional copyists who copied manuscripts for sale, and "memoriones", the early modern equivalent of video pirates, who attended performances, memorized the text and wrote it out to sell to competing theater companies.
Year: 2014
Primary URL: http://https://www.worldcat.org/title/comedia-espanola-en-sus-manuscritos-coloquio-internacional-parma-17-18-y-19-de-octubre-de-2013/oclc/935311140?referer=di&ht=edition
Publisher: Ediciones de la U. de Castilla-La Mancha
Book Title: La comedia española en sus manuscritos

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