Leiden University Student Repository

Roelofs, Constanteyn Theodorus Johannes (2015)

Building Xanadu: Humanism in the Digital Age

Master thesis | History (MA)

Three remarkable minds shaped the computer world as we know it today. Douglas Engelbart invented the man-machine interaction system and Theodor Holm Nelson laid out the basic structure of hypertext, which serves as the underpinning principle of the Internet. Both men were inspired by Vannevar Bush, the science advisor to president Roosevelt during World War II and an influential information theorist after that. The question is, were these authors already thinking about the future of humanism as an intellectual discipline? As it turns out, formative ideas for humanism in the computer were already present from the outset.

Digital Humanities

Humanism

Information Science

Theodor Holm Nelson

Douglas Engelbart

Vannevar Bush

Historiography

Author

Roelofs, Constanteyn Theodorus Johannes

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

Colonial and Global History

Supervisors

Paul, Herman

ECTS Credits

30

Language

en