A Genealogy of Distant Reading

https://openmethods.dariah.eu/2017/10/04/underwood-a-genealogy-of-distant-reading/ OpenMethods introduction to: A Genealogy of Distant Reading 2017-10-04 20:12:11 Introduction: This article traces complex genealogy of distant reading to social-scientific approaches in literary studies. Maciej Maryl http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/11/2/000317/000317.html Blog post Analysis Archiving Computers Content Analysis Data Digital Humanities Dissemination Editing English Enrichment Give Overview Information Retrieval Interpretation Language Literature Machine Learning Meta-Activities Methods Projects Publishing Research Activities Research Objects Research Process Research Techniques Storage Teaching / Learning Text Theorizing Tools via bookmarklet

Introduction by OpenMethods Editor (Maciej Maryl): This article traces complex genealogy of distant reading to social-scientific approaches in literary studies.

It has recently become common to describe all empirical approaches to literature as subfields of digital humanities. This essay argues that distant reading has a largely distinct genealogy stretching back many decades before the advent of the internet – a genealogy that is not for the most part centrally concerned with computers. It would be better to understand this field as a conversation between literary studies and social science, inititated by scholars like Raymond Williams and Janice Radway, and moving slowly toward an explicitly experimental method. Candor about the social-scientific dimension of distant reading is needed now, in order to refocus a research agenda that can drift into diffuse exploration of digital tools. Clarity on this topic might also reduce miscommunication between distant readers and digital humanists.

 

Original publication date: 2017.

Source: DHQ: Digital Humanities Quarterly: A Genealogy of Distant Reading