Formal Methods in Text Analysis I

This course on method in literary studies will introduce graduate students to the principles of formal (as opposed to speculative) analysis. More than an emphasis on “form” or “computation,” formal analysis requires the development of theoretical commitments, vulnerable, at the outset, to empirical verification (being wrong). Many questions in the social sciences and the humanities can benefit from formal analysis grounded in the particularities of language. The attention to low-order single-document textual building blocks (“formal features”)—word, sentence, paragraph, story—will sharpen our intuitions about higher-order phenomena, such as agency, power, authority, style, race, gender, or influence. How complex cultural dynamics can be broken down into components, and then reassembled into models yielding scholarly insight—that’s the topic of this class. Comparison between documents, over time, and across many texts will comprise Part II of the course.

Though all of the methods introduced can be done by pen and paper, the course will serve as a gentle introduction to Python programming, using industry-standard tools for text processing. No prior experience required to participate.