About

I have a rather unusual position at Stanford where I am both a Consulting Assistant Professor and an "embedded" Academic Technology Specialist (ATS) within the Department of English. The history of the ATS program at Stanford and some details about exactly what we ATS-types do can be found on the ATS web site. Briefly though, we are technology experts who work within academic departments and programs in which we have disciplinary expertise; in my case, for example, an advanced degree in literature. My primary role as ATS is to serve as a consultant to the English Department and to work with other faculty and staff in the department to help them leverage technology for research and teaching.

My own research and teaching is focused on computer based text analysis and Irish literature. For a long time (think dissertation topic) I have been interested in Irish-American writers from the American West, and some of my recent publications include articles about Irish writers in Kansas, Montana, and California. I have compiled a fairly comprehensive and searchable bibliography of Irish-American writers and their books online at The Western Institute of Irish Studies. At the same site there is also a modest archive of 15 or 20 fully digitized (TEI-XML) novels written by Irish-Americans in the West.

I also write tools (or software) for doing computer-based text-analysis and lately that has meant what I call "Macro-Analysis." (There is a brief write up describing some of my earliest work on the Text Analysis Developers Alliance website). More recently (2006-2007) I took a year's leave at the Stanford Humanities Center where I was "Research Scholar in the Digital Humanities." During that time, I got serious about putting together a Macro Analysis tool set and developing this idea of macro-analysis. I also got started writing a book that explores how large digital collections can be mined for literary research. I'm working on the final chapter now. A blurb about my work at the SHC year can be found on the Center's web site. As part of my commitment to the SHC, I also set up the "Beyond Search Workshop" which is about to begin its third year of activity. In 2008 four of us from the workshop formed a panel and presented papers at the international Digital Humanities conference in Oulu, Finland.

Over the years I have taught courses and given seminars on a wide array of subjects ranging from text-encoding with XML and TEI to building applications for computer-based text analysis. My practical work with technology has encompassed everything from systems administration and database design to web development and technical support. In all this work, I have kept my focus on literature and an eye toward how technology can be employed to help us answer literary questions.

Beyond these pursuits, I enjoy a variety of outdoor activities. For years I was an avid rock climber, from 2003 - 2005 I played rugby with the Mission Rugby Football Club. Most recently I have taken up LSD (that's Long Slow Distance or "ultra-running"). On August 6, 2006 I ran my first ultra marathon, the Skyline 50K in 5:54:46. On October 7, 2006 I ran the Dick Collins Firetrails 50 Mile Race in 10:14:25. . .as my friend Tim used to say about my skills as a drywall finisher, "he's not very good but he sure is slow." The following year I tried the Dick Collins race again despite two weeks with a fever and chest cold. I DNF'ed (that's "Did Not Finish") after 33 miles. Since then I have not raced in any organized event, but I keep thinking that entering the Badwater Ultramarathon would be a swell idea! Badwater is a 135 mile race run through Death Valley and up Mt. Whitney, in July. So that's what's on my running radar.

Below are some links to articles profiling my work in Academic Technology and Humanities Computing. Links profiling my career as an ultra-runner have yet to materialize. . .

Shea, Christopher. "The Geography of Irish-American Lit." Boston Globe, Online Edition July 30, 2008.
"Matthew L. Jockers, a "digital humanities" expert at Stanford and a specialist in Irish-American literature, argues that scholars have been too East-coast-centric. . ."

Howard, Jennifer. "Literary Geospaces: Digital tools help put literature in its place." Chronicle of Higher Education, Online Edition July 28. Print Edition August 1, 2008.
"Jockers's project. . .uses Google Earth to plot where and when Irish-American literary activity took place across the United States. . ."

"Spotlight on the Digital Library," Stanford Humanities Center Newsletter, 02/25/2008
"The. . .Beyond Search and Access Workshop is an interdisciplinary workshop pushing the boundaries of what is possible in the digital humanities today and collaborating to test some of these new tools and methodologies through new research."

Stanford Magazine, Stanford University, March-April 2007.
"Jockers designs computer-based programs that allow him to probe and analyze large literary databases. . ."

Speaking of Computers, Stanford University, January 2007.
"Matthew Jockers (ATS for the English Department) and David Riggs (Professor of English) demonstrated a joint project, Visualizing the Bard, which was initially conceived as a note-taking experiment, but evolved into a dynamic Web application. . ."

Text Analysis Developers Alliance Blog, May 2005.
"Matthew Jockers has noticed a trend of meta-analysis in the recent works of Humanities Computing researchers that focuses on methodologies rather than results. . ."

Speaking of Computers, Stanford University, April 2005.
"During the winter term, English Department Academic Technology Specialist, Matthew Jockers, teamed up with English Professor Franco Moretti to offer a graduate course [that] explored various ways in which literary material can be quantified. . ."

Stanford Humanities Laboratory Report, June 2003.
"Jockers spoke about the process developed by the IAW project team to convert styled Microsoft Word files into Text-Encoding Initiative (TEI) compliant, well-formed, valid XML files. . ."

Speaking of Computers, Stanford University, April 2002.
". . .his collaborations with faculty ranged in complexity from simple image scanning projects to the conversion of analog audio and video to streaming digital files. . ."