art, academic and non-fiction books
publishers’ Eastern and Central European representation

Name your list

Log in / Sign in

ta strona jest nieczynna, ale zapraszamy serdecznie na stronę www.obibook.com /// this website is closed but we cordially invite you to visit www.obibook.com

ISBN: PB: 9780226612836

University of Chicago Press

March 2019

200 pp.

21.5x13.9 cm

24 halftones, 4 tables

PB:
£21,00
QTY:

Categories:

Distant Horizons

Digital Evidence and Literary Change

Just as a traveler crossing a continent won't sense the curvature of the earth, one lifetime of reading can't grasp the largest patterns organizing literary history. This is the guiding premise behind "Distant Horizons", which uses the scope of data newly available to us through digital libraries to tackle previously elusive questions about literature. Ted Underwood shows how digital archives and statistical tools, rather than reducing words to numbers (as is often feared), can deepen our understanding of issues that have always been central to humanistic inquiry.   Without denying the usefulness of time-honored approaches like close reading, narratology, or genre studies, Underwood argues that we also need to read the larger arcs of literary change that have remained hidden from us by their sheer scale. Using both close and distant reading to trace the differentiation of genres, transformation of gender roles, and surprising persistence of aesthetic judgment, Underwood shows how digital methods can bring into focus the larger landscape of literary history and add to the beauty and complexity we value in literature.  

About the Author

Ted Underwood is professor of information sciences and English at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is also the author, most recently, of "Why Literary Periods Mattered: Historical Contrast and the Prestige of English Studies".