The seven CEDAR pilot projects and their personnel are listed below. These projects span ancient, medieval, and modern literature. They have been carefully chosen to provide test cases from a wide range of cultures, languages, and writing systems. CEDAR demonstrates that the same computational platform can be used for any textual research project while permitting scholars in diverse fields to describe textual phenomena according to their own conventions and preferences. Descriptions of the seven projects are provided on the Project Descriptions page.

Within each CEDAR project team, scholars with expertise in a particular corpus supervise student assistants who work with digitized facsimile images of original manuscripts (in the case of ancient and medieval projects) or with images of printed pages (for Shakespeare and other authors for whom manuscripts are not preserved), or with both (for modern authors such as Melville whose manuscripts are in some cases preserved). Similar methods are used for both manuscripts and printed texts. Textual variants of course appear in hand-copied manuscripts, reflecting complex histories of scribal transmission and revision. But it is often the case that there are significant variations in successive printed editions of a literary work. For example, the Folio and quarto editions of Shakespeare’s plays often diverge, and even within a single edition, early printing practices resulted in variations in typesetting and even in wording from one print run to the next, analogous to the scribal variations found in hand-copied manuscripts. Likewise, it is often the case that the printed works of a later author, such as Herman Melville, were revised by the author or abridged and expurgated by a publisher in a subsequent edition.

The students use the OCHRE database software to enter transcriptions, translations, bibliog­raphy, and commentary for each manuscript or printed text, interlinking the many atomized epigraphic and discursive entities extracted from the texts. This is not simply mechanical data entry; the nature of the work is such that the students are intellectually engaged in developing and testing new ways of conceptualizing, recording, and dis­playing textual variants in close consultation with their faculty advisors and the computational staff. In the process, the students work with the computational staff to speed up the workflow by automating repetitive tasks, resulting in new software features that the students test and help to refine in an iterative manner. Improve­ments to the common underlying computational platform are immediately available for all projects to use.

The Hebrew Bible

  • Jeffrey Stackert, Professor of Hebrew Bible, Divinity School (project leader and co-director of the CEDAR initiative)
  • Simeon Chavel, Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible, The Divinity School, University of Chicago
  • Ronald Hendel, Norma and Sam Dabby Professor of Hebrew Bible and Jewish Studies, University of California, Berkeley
  • Tuukka Kauhanen, University Lecturer and Academy Research Fellow in Biblical Studies, University of Helsinki
  • Reinhard Müller, Professor of Old Testament, University of Göttingen
  • Juha Pakkala, University Lecturer in Biblical Studies, University of Helsinki
  • Sarah Yardney, Postdoctoral Researcher, Divinity School, University of Chicago (UChicago Ph.D. in Bible, 2017)
  • Doren Snoek, Teaching Fellow, Divinity School and the College, University of Chicago (UChicago Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East, 2021)

  • Student assistants at the University of Chicago: Joseph Cross (2017–2018), Ph.D. student in Hebrew Bible and Egyptology; Bradley Hansen (2020–), Ph.D. student in New Testament and Early Christian Literature

The Epic of Gilgamesh

  • Miller Prosser, Associate Director of Digital Studies, Division of the Humanities (project leader pro tem)

  • Martha Roth, Chauncey S. Boucher Distinguished Service Professor of Assyriology, Oriental Institute and Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations, University of Chicago

  • Abraham Winitzer, Jordan H. Kapson Associate Professor of Jewish Studies, University of Notre Dame
  • Christopher Woods, Professor of Assyriology and Sumerology and Williams Director of the Penn Museum, University of Pennsylvania
  • Student assistants at the University of Chicago: Andrew Wilent (2017–2018), Ph.D. student of Cuneiform Studies; Colton Siegmund (2018–), Ph.D. student of Cuneiform Studies

The Egyptian Book of the Dead

  • Foy Scalf, Research Associate and Head of Research Archives, Oriental Institute (project leader)
  • Brian Muhs, Associate Professor of Egyptology, Oriental Institute and Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations, University of Chicago
  • Rita Lucarelli, Associate Professor of Egyptology, University of California, Berkeley
  • Student assistant at the University of Chicago: Beth Wang, M.A. student of Egyptology

Piers Plowman

Beshrew Me! Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew and Early Modern Domestic Culture

  • Ellen MacKay, Associate Professor, Department of English Language & Literature, and Chair, Committee on Theater & Performance Studies, University of Chicago (project leader and co-director of the CEDAR initiative)
  • Pamela Allen Brown, Professor of English, University of Connecticut, Stamford
  • Frances Dolan, Distinguished Professor of English, University of California, Davis
  • Tara Lyons, Associate Professor of English, Illinois State University
  • Kirsten Sword, independent scholar (formerly Assistant Professor of History, Indiana University)
  • Victoria Yeoman, Assistant Professor of English, Seneca College, Toronto
  • Student assistants at the University of Chicago: Ashleigh Cassemere-Stanfield (2017–2018), Ph.D. student of English; Arianna Gass (2017–2018), Ph.D. student of English; Sarah Gray Lesley (2018– ), Ph.D. student of English

Indigenous American Sign Systems

  • Edgar Garcia, Associate Professor, Department of English Language & Literature, University of Chicago (project leader)
  • Claudia Brittenham, Associate Professor, Department of Art History, University of Chicago
  • Jon Clindaniel, Assistant Instructional Professor in Computational Social Science, University of Chicago
  • Mark Payne, Chester D. Tripp Professor, Departments of Classics and Comparative Literature and the Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago
  • Student assistant at the University of Chicago: Julia Marsan, Ph.D. student of Comparative Literature

The Works of Herman Melville

  • John Bryant, Professor Emeritus of English, Hofstra University, and Director, Melville Electronic Library (project leader)
  • Wyn Kelley, Senior Lecturer in Literature, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Christopher Ohge, Lecturer in Digital Approaches to Literature, University of London
  • Eric Slauter, Associate Professor, Department of English Language & Literature, University of Chicago
  • Student assistant at the University of Chicago: Brion Drake, Ph.D. student of English

Computational Staff

  • Sandra Schloen is Technology Director for Digital Studies and Manager of the OCHRE Data Service in the Division of the Humanities of the University of Chicago. She has a degree in computer science and more than thirty years of professional experience as a software engineer. She is the co-creator and lead developer of the OCHRE platform. She works closely with each CEDAR project team, providing technical consulting and training in the use of OCHRE and creating software enhancements in response to their feedback.
  • David Schloen is Faculty Director of Digital Studies and Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology in the Oriental Institute and Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations of the University of Chicago. He is an archaeologist with strong interests and training in ancient textual studies and digital humanities. He has a degree in computer science and is the co-creator (with Sandra Schloen) of the OCHRE platform. He is not involved in any particular CEDAR project but conceived and organized the CEDAR initiative as a whole and provides general oversight.
  • Miller Prosser is Associate Director of Digital Studies in the Division of the Humanities of the University of Chicago and a lecturer in the M.A. program in Digital Studies of Language, Culture, and History, for which he teaches the core courses on “Data Management for the Humanities” and “Data Publication for the Humanities.” He earned a Ph.D. in Northwest Semitic Philology and Biblical Hebrew from the University of Chicago in 2010 and has been involved in humanities computing for more than ten years, especially in the areas of ancient textual studies and archaeology. He assists Sandra Schloen in supporting the use of the OCHRE computational platform by many different academic projects including the seven CEDAR projects. He is the primary contact for the CEDAR initiative.
  • Paul Funk was the Founder and CEO of Funk Software, Inc., in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is an alumnus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and did graduate work in English literature at the University of Chicago before embarking on a career as a software engineer and entrepreneur. He has been an advisor and supporter of the CEDAR initiative since its inception.