LITTERATURHISTORIA INOM DIGITAL HUMANIORA

Nordic Literary History Now Workshop, Aalborg universitet

23-24 mars 2017

Jenny Bergenmar, jenny.bergenmar@lir.gu.se

Från humanities computing till digital humanities

• Literary studies (Thomas

Rommel):

”Most studies, both quantitative

and qualitative, published in the

context of literary humanities

computing after powerful desktop

computers became available,

tend to prioritize empirical data,

either in the form of automatically

extracted stylistic features, or as

encoded thematic units that are

then quantified, mapped, and

interpreted.”

http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companion/

Digital Literary Studies

http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companionDLS/

Små- och storskalig textdigitalisering

Storskalig textanalys i centrum

• Distant reading (Moretti)

• Algoritmic criticism (Ramsay)

• Macronalaysis (Jockers)

Gemensamt:

• Datorstödda metoder

• Kvantitativa metoder

(hos Jockers och Moretti även

generalism)

Litteraturhistoriens data

• “unfathomably large deluge of data and cultural material that the digital age has already unleashed, something that will require humanists to contend with text-mining tools, machine reading, and various kinds of algorithmic analyses”

• Todd Presner (2011) ”Comparative Literature in the Age of Digital Humanities: On the Possible Futures for A Discipline”, A Companion to Comparative Literature, ed Ali Behdadoch Dominic Thomas

Problem 1: materialtyp

Problem 2: flerspråkiga material

Problem 3: formalismens återkomst

)

One might argue that

the computer is simply

amplifying the critic's

powers of perception

and recall in concert

with conventional

perspectives. This is

true, and some

applications of the

concept can be viewed

as a lateral extension of

Formalism, New

Criticism, Structuralism,

and so forth.

Sentiment and Plot Arcs: Syuzhet Package

http://www.matthewjockers.net/2014/06/05/a-novel-method-for-

detecting-plot/

Hermeneutik + formalisering?Hermeneutik formalisering?

• “the computational turn does not involve ‘just’ a specific formalisation of research hermeneutics; it possibly also involves a specific formalisation of the research thought process” (288)

”Cultures of Formalization. Towards an Encounter between Humanities and Computing” (2012).

Van Zundert et al, In Understanding the Digital Humanities, ed. David Berry. Basinstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

Utmaningar

• Konflikt mellan generalism och

specialisering

• Konflikt mellan kritisk teori och

datadriven forskning

• Vems litteraturhistoria är

digitaliserad?

• ”Archives are not sites of knowledge

retrieval but of knowledge production;

not recorded moments of history but

monuments of states, colonies,

empires” (Koh, Inspecting the Nineteenth-

Century Literary Digital Archive. Omissions of

Empire. Journal of Victorian Culture 2014

19(3):385–395 )

Möjligheter

• Crowdsourcing/Citizen

humanities

• Använd, samla och

redigera metadata

• DIY/small digital

humanities

• Fler litteraturhistoriker

inom DH!