This post was collaboratively written by Freeda Wilson and Katherine Wooler
Freeda Wilson is currently completing an EMiC-funded project, which she anticipates will form part of her doctoral dissertation—supervised by Dr. Karis Shearer and Dr. Grisel Maria Garcia Pérez—to fulfill the requirements of her degree at UBC Okanagan. Her dissertation “Translating Bonheur d’occasion: Reinventing French-Canadian Culture in English, Spanish, and French” probes several editions and translations of Bonheur d’occasion [French 1945, 1947, 1947 (France), 1965, 1977, 1993, Spanish 1948, English 1947, 1980] and investigates variances between the texts, such as omissions and modifications. Freeda will determine the extent to which these variances affect the text, including aspects such as the representation of characters, religion, and culture. The main goal of her research is to examine the extent to which revision and translation affect the conceptual cohesion of the narrative of the 1945 edition of Bonheur d’occasion in the subsequent editions/translations. Furthermore, she will explore how digital humanities’ methodologies might compensate for conceptual variances between the original text and subsequent versions and translations, particularly in terms of the 1965 French edition, the Spanish translation, and the two English translations.
Freeda’s main challenge is how to best bridge the various editions in a manner which informs the reader but does not alter or take away from any of the individual editions. Another obstacle was copyright; however, she was fortunate to obtain permission from the Gabrielle Fonds to access and use materials for research purposes. While Freeda has experimented with Juxta (open source versioning/collation software), she will not be using it for her examination of variations of Bonheur d’occasion because uploading text to Juxta online would be a copyright infringement. Also, the software is not yet equipped to adequately support multiple languages.
Freeda found DHSI a very useful arena for generating ideas, especially since a major part of her process involves the digital/technical aspects of her project. Her project focuses on developing a 3D rendering of the variances in one chapter (Chapter XXX of the 1945 Pascal edition) across eight subsequent editions/translations of the text. This 3D visualization of Freeda’s research will present data on three axes simultaneously and coordinate which planes can be viewed at any given moment, revealing various sets of relationships depending on the view. The visible data and consequent themes will be determined by the researcher who is viewing the data. The different visual perspectives that are provided by this 3D model replicate how an object is viewed when held and rotated in the hand. Depending on the angle, various combinations of components will be visible at once.
Freeda is currently migrating the data from her research to her 3D model prototype in order to create the final 3D version, which in turn will integrate with its written counterpart in the dissertation. Her next step will be to create a website, which will house the various digital components relevant to her dissertation and to the various editions of Bonheur d’occasion, including the 3D model. These other digital components include timelines, charts, networks, frequency graphs, collation/versioning, data modeling/topic modeling, text manipulation tools, and multimedia materials. She is building the website herself, and her coursework at DHSI has significantly developed her vision. This portion of her work (the digitized components) will become available as she completes each item.