Ray visited Miami for the Renaissance Society of America Conference in March. He delivered a paper called “A Renaissance English Knowledgebase (REKn) in a Professional Reading Environment (PReE)” for the session titled “New Technologies and Renaissance Studies 1: The Early Modern Codex in Contemporary Electronic Context.”
Abstract: The Renaissance English Knowledgebase (REKn) contains a combination of digital representations of primary literary and artistic works of the Renaissance (some 13,000 works at present), plus secondary materials reflecting our understanding of these earlier works. These materials are accessed through a reading interface supported by a database system that facilitates their navigation and dynamic interaction, also providing access to inquiry-oriented analytical tools beyond simple search functions. The effect is that of providing an expert reading environment for those in our field, one that encourages close, comprehensive reading at the same time as it provides, conveniently, the building blocks of broad-based research inquiry.
See the full program here (Warning: large PDF file).