Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book offers a theoretical framing that speaks to all of the digital humanities (DH) labors, where the projected fantasy of DH reconstruction and economic obliteration are confronted with the material realities and ghostly traces of creative destruction and remanence. It also offers a complex and creative feedback loop across texts, technology, and cultural heritage, and across the practices of critically-informed DH practice and the cutting and stitching of the early modern Fragmenta manuscripta. The book argues for the productive cross-resistances that premodern and digital modes of reading bring to the crucial work of mark-up into machine-readable schemas such as Text Encoding Initiative. It provides an immersive environment for critical interactions with the complexities of human agency in the temporal and spatial encounters between Jewish, Christian and Muslim premodern citizens, and serves as multi-sensorial enhancements to traditional textual excavations.