Developing logic-based spatial knowledge representation in the digital humanities

The Digital Humanities use computational methods in the study of history, literature, and other disciplines in the humanities. Within this general area there has been a particular recent focus on spatial information leading to the identification of The Spatial Humanities. Much work here uses GIS (Geographical Information Systems) to help analyse data from historical or literary sources. A significant challenge is that GIS originated in engineering and scientific disciplines and hence is very poorly equipped to handle the vague, uncertain, and metaphorical forms of spatial description that are commonplace in the humanities. Within Artificial Intelligence the representation of qualitative spatial information through formal logic is a well-established technique that is very largely unexplored in the Digital Humanities.

This project will focus on the Computer Science aspects of using this type of logic-based spatial representation in the humanities. Specific questions include: What systems of spatial relations are most relevant to the humanities? Can logical reasoning effectively complement GIS methods in the humanities? How can these techniques be made accessible to scholars in the digital humanities?