[Go to Course Site] This course works on two parallel tracks:
          On one track, students are introduced to methods and tools of the digital humanities–text encoding, data-mining and text analysis (including the cutting-edge approach known as “topic modeling”), social network analysis, mapping, and visualization. These provide extra leverage when reading individual texts or small collections of texts, and really come into their own when reading materials that literary interpretation previously had no way to handle–e.g., “big data” collections of texts or hybrid collections of texts (e.g., novels and newspapers of the nineteenth century). Each class in the early weeks of the course will introduce students to concepts, methods, and tools in the digital humanities, and require “practicums” in which students experiment with the tools in exploratory ways.
          On a second track, the course is an experiment in collaborative project-making. With the help and supervision of the instructor, we’re going to use the new digital methods to make a class project demonstrating the digital reading of literature…. [more]