scholarly journals From Distant to Public Reading The (Hebrew) Novel in the Eyes of Many

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yael Dekel ◽  
Itay Marienberg-Milikowsky
Keyword(s):  
Digital Humanities ◽  
National Literature ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Distant Reading ◽  
Computer Based ◽  
Literary Histories ◽  
Literary System ◽  
Fusion Approach ◽  
National Literatures

From its very beginning, the term “distant reading” (Moretti 2000) was controversial, displacing ‘close reading’ by relying on literary histories and thereby reflecting on the entire global literary system. One of the weaknesses of this approach lies in its exclusive reliance on canonical and authoritative historiographies, one or two for each national literature, something which is bound to over-simplify the complexities of national literatures. As is known, Moretti’s proposal became a ‘slogan’ for Digital Humanities while algorithmic manipulation of texts has taken the place of reading literary (human) histories. Yet the problem of over-simplification remains, albeit differently. As an alternative, we offer a fusion approach, radicalising Moretti’s idea. In this article, we demonstrate how computer-based analysis of different readings carried out by many readers – not necessarily professionals – produces a relatively minute picture. Our case study will be the Hebrew novel, from its emergence in 1853 to the present day; a manageable corpus on which we gather information using questionnaires we have carefully created in our lab. Alongside the presentation of our approach, the actual research, and its initial findings, we will reflect theoretically on the conceptual benefits, as well as the limits, of public distance reading.

Dostoevsky and the Word “Jew”: A Quantitative Analysis of F.M. Dostoevsky’s Greatest Novels

Libri ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yigal Nirenberg ◽  
Gila Prebor
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Digital Humanities ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Distant Reading ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Great Writer ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract The relationship of F.M Dostoevsky with Jews attracted the attention of numerous scholars throughout the years, many of whom attempted to grapple with the views of the great writer and their origin. In this article we will attempt to show this relationship by analyzing six of Dostoevsky’s greatest novels, written through the entirety of his career. We are analyzing these novels using Distant Reading in conjunction with Close Reading, tools that are commonly used in the field of digital humanities, which enabled us to show visually the extent of F.M. Dostoevsky’s engagement with this topic. The study poses two research questions: 1. To what extent did the writer use the more denigrating term “Zhid”? 2. Can we see a correlation between the writer’s portrayal of Jews with the definition of Anti-Semitism as it was known during his era? The obtained results show that there is clearly a correlation between the definition of anti-Semitism as it was understood at the time of Dostoevsky and the “Jew” as depicted in his novels, as the financial motif is paramount in the depiction of Jews as this is the central topic in 49% of the negative sentences in which the word “Jew” appears, with 59% of these sentences classified as stereotypes. The negative financial stereotype constitutes 32% of the entire corpus. In addition, we found the term “Zhid” is commonly used by the writer, a variation of which constitutes 75% of the total terms used to depict Jews.

Reading Distance: Port Louis, Cairo, Beijing

PMLA ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 135 (5) ◽  
pp. 859-876
Author(s):  
Michael Gibbs Hill
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Distant Reading ◽  
Language Reform ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Paul Et Virginie ◽  
Reading Distance

This essay uses a case study of Lin Shu (1852-1924) and (1876-1924) to argue for an approach to world literature called “reading distance.” Through a close reading of Lin Shu's and translations of Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's Paul et Virginie (Paul and Virginia) into Chinese and Arabic and a consideration of their work as translators and intellectuals, the essay reads between peripheries—places like Cairo and Beijing—to understand how intellectuals in those places grappled with difficult questions concerning translation, language reform, and changes in reading publics. By thinking with models of distant reading but also engaging with materials that are usually excluded from those models, the essay examines an important point of overlap in the intellectual and cultural histories of the Arab and Chinese enlightenments of the early twentieth century.

scholarly journals Toponyms as Entry Points into a Digital Edition: Mapping Die Fackel

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-33
Author(s):  
Adrien Barbaresi
Keyword(s):  
Digital Humanities ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Place Names ◽  
Distant Reading ◽  
Interdisciplinary Work ◽  
Digital Edition ◽  
Entry Points ◽  
Literary Journal

Abstract The emergence of Spatial Humanities has prompted for interdisciplinary work on digitized texts, especially since the significance of place names exceeds the usually admitted frame of deictic and indexical functions. In this perspective, I present a visualization of toponyms co-occurrences in the literary journal Die Fackel ("The Torch"), published by the satirist and language critic Karl Kraus in Vienna from 1899 until 1936. The distant reading experiments consist in drawing lines on maps in order to uncover patterns which are not easily retraceable during close reading. I discuss their status in the context of a digital humanities study. This is not an authoritative cartography of the work but rather an indirect depiction of the viewpoint of Kraus and his contemporaries. Drawing on Kraus' vitriolic recording of political life, toponyms in Die Fackel tell a story about the ongoing reconfiguration of Europe.

scholarly journals SCRIITORI ROMÂNI DE EXPRESIE STRĂINĂ TRADUCĂTORI AI OPERELOR ROMÂNEŞTI: CAZUL ANDREI CODRESCU

2021 ◽  
pp. 285-295
Author(s):  
Luiza MARINESCU ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Host Country ◽  
Literary Tradition ◽  
Foreign Country ◽  
National Literature ◽  
American Writer ◽  
Foreign Countries ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Literary Histories ◽  
Romanian Literature ◽  
National Literatures

The literary tradition and the production of literary histories has long focused upon “national literature,” which is to say those works written in the tongue of the country in question. As a result, writers of Romanian origin who lived in a foreign country and wrote in the language of their host country were often overlooked by Romanian critics, because such writers were considered to be exponents of the national literatures of the foreign countries in which they resided. In the case of Romanian literature, there are several generations of writers of multilingual expression, and the above dynamic has proven to be the case for a very long time. Throughout the centuries, the language of administration and culture was often different from Romanian vernacular, and the writers who managed to become internationally known were those writing in the language of culture rather than those writing in Romanian. This study analyzes the work of Andrei Codrescu, a Romanian-American writer who managed to transform his experience of exile into a “Road Scholar” (according to his film of this name) leading to a profitable university career enlightened by literature.

Transformation and Education in GDR Youth Literature: A Script Theory Approach

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-82
Author(s):  
Jean E. Conacher
Keyword(s):  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Socialist Realism ◽  
National Literature ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Theory Approach ◽  
Conceptual Blending ◽  
Script Theory ◽  
Cultural Policies ◽  
Youth Literature

Youth literature within the German Democratic Republic (GDR) officially enjoyed equal status with adult literature, with authors often writing for both audiences. Such parity of esteem pre-supposed that youth literature would also adopt the cultural–political frameworks designed to nurture the establishment of socialism on German soil. In their quest to forge a legitimate national literature capable of transforming the population, politicians and writers drew repeatedly upon the cultural heritage of Weimar classicism and the Bildungsroman, Humboldtian educational traditions and Soviet-inspired models of socialist realism. Adopting a script theory approach inspired by Jean Matter Mandler, this article explores how directive cultural policies lead to the emergence of multiple scripts which inform the nature and narrative of individual works. Three broad ideological scripts within GDR youth literature are identified which underpin four distinct narrative scripts employed by individual writers to support, challenge and ultimately subvert the primacy of the Bildungsroman genre. A close reading of works by Strittmatter, Pludra, Görlich, Tetzner and Saalmann reveals further how conceptual blending with classical and fairy-tale scripts is exploited to legitimise and at times mask critique of transformation and education inside and outside the classroom and to offer young protagonists a voice often denied their readers.

Patrick Kavanagh and the Authentic ‘Dispensation’: Rereading the Role of Narrator in The Great Hunger

2012 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Kilcoyne
Keyword(s):  
National Literature ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Peasant Farmer ◽  
Nineteen Forties ◽  
Death Knell

This essay posits a challenge to the continued reading of The Great Hunger (1942) as a realist depiction of the Irish small-farming class in the nineteen forties. The widespread critical acceptance of the poem as a socio-historical ‘documentary’ both relies upon and propagates an outmoded notion of authenticity based upon the implicit fallacy that Kavanagh's body of work designates a quintessence of Irishness in contradistinction to his Revivalist predecessors. In 1959 Kavanagh referred to this delusion as constituting his ‘dispensation’, for indeed it did provide a poetic niche for the young poet. Kavanagh's acknowledgement of this dispensation came with his rejection of all prescriptive literary symbols. While this iconoclasm is widely recognised in his later career, the relevance of The Great Hunger to this question continues to be overlooked. In fact, this poem contains his strongest dialectic upon the use of symbols – such as the peasant farmer – in designating an authentic national literature. The close reading of The Great Hunger offered here explores the poem's central deconstruction of ruralism and authenticity. The final ‘apocalypse of clay’ is the poem's collapse under the stress of its own deconstructed symbolism; the final scream sounds the death knell to Kavanagh's adherence to his authentic dispensation.

Teaching Computer Based Historical Data Analysis

1994 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Anderson ◽  
Robert J. Morris
Keyword(s):  
Data Analysis ◽  
Social History ◽  
Historical Data ◽  
Good Practice ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
Historical Data Analysis ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
Computer Based ◽  
The University

A case study ofa third year course in the Department of Economic and Social History in the University of Edinburgh isusedto considerandhighlightaspects of good practice in the teaching of computer-assisted historical data analysis.

Texts: A Case Study of Joint Action

SATS ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nivedita Gangopadhyay ◽  
Alois Pichler
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Joint Action ◽  
Digital Humanities ◽  
Linguistic Communication ◽  
Unique Type ◽  
Joint Actions ◽  
Spatio Temporal

Abstract Our linguistic communication often takes the form of creating texts. In this paper, we propose that creating texts or ‘texting’ is a form of joint action. We examine the nature and evolution of this joint action. We argue that creating texts ushers in a special type of joint action, which, while lacking some central features of normal, everyday joint actions such as spatio-temporal collocation of agency and embodiment, nonetheless results in an authentic, strong, and unique type of joint action agency. This special type of agency is already present in creating texts in general and is further augmented in creating texts through digital media. We propose that such a unique type of joint action agency has a transformative effect on the experience of our sense of agency and subjectivity. We conclude with the implications of the proposal for social cognition and social agency. The paper combines research in philosophy of mind with the emerging fields of digital humanities and text technology.

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