Cultural Analytics
Computational methods that open cultural materials to new research.
Overview
Cultural analytics is the use of quantitative and computational methods to study cultural and historical materials at scales and with quantitative detail that close reading alone cannot reach.
At the Center for Advanced Research in Computational Humanities, such methods raise their own interpretive questions (what a model of a corpus represents, what it omits, and how its results affect arguments), and those questions are part of our research.
Research directions
- Distant reading, stylometry, and authorship attribution across large corpora.
- Handwritten text recognition and use of computers to decipher manuscripts.
- Vector and embedding search over libraries, archives, and special collections.
- Network analysis of historical correspondence and social structures.
- Computing in the study of archaeological provenance and material culture.
- Quantitative analysis of literary, linguistic, and historical change over time.
Canonical readings
A starter shelf.
2013
Distant Reading
Franco Moretti
Names and consolidates the distant-reading paradigm.
2013
Macroanalysis: Digital Methods and Literary History
Matthew L. Jockers
The foundational methods text for computational literary history.
2019
Distant Horizons: Digital Evidence and Literary Change
Ted Underwood
The leading machine-learning-era account of literary change.
People in this area