Humanities By the Numbers: Essential Readings in Digital Humanities

3 units

To what extent can computational techniques that draw on statistical patterns and quantification assist us in literary analysis? Over the semester, we will juxtapose the close reading of historical documents or literary works with the distant reading of a large corpus of historical data or literary texts. We will ask how the typically human scale of reading that lets us respond to literary texts can be captured on the inhuman and massive scales at which computers can count, quantify and categorize texts.While this class will introduce you to basic statistical and computational techniques, no prior experience with technology is required. Prerequisites: two 200 level or one 300-level course in literature or history. This is a topics-type course and the specific documents and works examined will vary from semester to semester. Please see semester course listings for current offerings.