This course introduces important types and methods of the digital humanities (“DH”). Topics include the emergence of digital humanities as a field, “distant reading,” text encoding, text analysis (including various methods of quantitative analysis, topic modeling, and “word embedding”), artificial-intelligence “large language models,” and social network analysis.

Voyant Tools analysis of William Wordsworth’s The Prelude (1850 version).

A key aspect of the course is the balance it seeks between ideas and technology. Far-reaching ideas about literature and other areas of social and cultural life are reexamined from a technological perspective, and, reciprocally, current technology is thought about in relation to far older and more extensive domains of technê (human arts and skills).

The course gives students a hands-on introduction to  digital humanities methods and tools through weekly practicums designed for beginners. Other assignments include two “project proposals” (proposals for digital-humanities projects that are explained and planned out, but due to time constraints in an academic quarter do not have to be executed).