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Publications | Articulations – Critical Data Literacy, Wikidata, and Sappho (Untner) & Phantom Pregnancy and Phenomenology in Decameron viii. 3 and ix. 3 (Kalus)

Insight – Featured Image © Articulations / M. Schwindt (AI assistance: Firefly Image 3)

Insight – Featured Image © Articulations / M. Schwindt (AI assistance: Firefly Image 3)
Image Credit: Curatioral Statement – Featured Image © Articulations / M. Schwindt (AI assistance: Firefly Image 1)

Response – Featured Image © Articulations / M. Schwindt (AI assistance: Firefly Image 3)

Response – Featured Image © Articulations / M. Schwindt (AI assistance: Firefly Image 3)
Image Credit: Curatioral Statement – Featured Image © Articulations / M. Schwindt (AI assistance: Firefly Image 4)

News from Aug 03, 2025

A new insight has been added to the curated collection "Data". Laura Untner's (Research Area 5: Building Digital Communities) piece, "Reading Between the Lines of Data: Critical Data Literacy, Wikidata, and Sappho", published in July 2025, expands the conversation that began with the collection's publication in November 2024. In Digital Humanities and Computational Literary Studies, platforms like Wikidata are crucial for retrieving structured data. But how reliable is this data? Laura Untner's insight looks at Sappho's Wikidata entry (Q17892) as a case study to explore issues of data accuracy, misinformation, and the impact of cultural reception. Even though Wikidata's openness allows for extensive data accumulation, it also means fact and fiction can easily become conflated. This insight examines instances of inaccuracies in Sappho's biography as stated in Wikidata, including the perpetuation of myths, such as her supposed leap from a cliff on Lefkada. The examples show how digital data resources like Wikidata reflect not only historical uncertainty but also centuries of reinterpretation and myth-making. This raises important questions: How should contested or unreliable data be handled? And how can verified knowledge be distinguished from the narratives that shape it? By critically engaging with Sappho's Wikidata entry, this insight highlights the importance of data quality and critical data literacy, which serves as a timely reminder that digital data is shaped by interpretation as much as it is by information.

Furthermore, Frey Kalus (Research Area 3: Future Perfect) published a new response: "Phantom Pregnancy and Phenomenology in Decameron viii. 3 and ix. 3". This piece explores two stories from Boccaccio's Decameron, both featuring the character of Calandrino, through the lens of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology. It argues that the comedy of both tales relies upon a disjuncture between what Merleau-Ponty terms the 'lived body' and the 'objective body'. This phenomenological conception of embodiment is then used to explore the ways in which Calandrino's body challenges the binary of biological sex. The article further suggests that the conceit at the centre of the second story, in which Calandrino is tricked into believing he has become pregnant, may be read as an instance of phantom pregnancy.