ENGL 279: Digital Literary Analysis
ACE 3
3 credit hours,
Class Time: MWF 10:30-11:20 AM
Prerequisites: Sophomore Standing or higher
Description:
Introduction to computational text analysis with an emphasis on text processing for literary topics. Write computer algorithms for text analysis and exploration while developing a broad understanding of data structures and current trends in natural language processing, information retrieval, text mining, and statistical machine learning.
Additional Information:
The course will introduce students to the important readings, terms, and concepts of Computational Literary Studies. Much like a course on a specific literary historical period, or a course on a particular approach to literature (ex. a gender perspective), we will read texts that are important to the conversation and discuss how they affect our understanding of literature. More specifically, students will be introduced to new discoveries that professors have made about literary history using data approaches. In this regard, this course will feel like your traditional English discussion course.
On the other hand, part of this course is also meant to prepare students to navigate the growing role of computers and data science in our daily reading experiences. Whether it is recommendation systems encouraging you to read particular kinds of content, or using computers to study stylistic patterns, data plays a growing role in understanding the ways we read. As such, this course will introduce the terms and systems they will encounter if they choose a career in literary research or the publishing industry. This means two things for students. One, we will read introductory texts, ranging from the fields of computational linguistics and computer science. Two, we will have hands-on lab experiences so students have an understanding of what these processes look like (at a very elementary level). The emphasis here is on breadth over depth. Because this is an introductory course, there are no hard prerequisites for enrolling. This course is, however, highly recommended for students with interests in the study of literary history or the role of technology in culture.
Fulfills requirements in the Digital Humanities and Informatics minors
For more information:
Jonathan Cheng, jonathan.cheng@huskers.unl.edu
Kathleen Lacey, klacey3@unl.edu
More details at: https://www.unl.edu/english/home