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GERMANIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES (L21)  (Dept. Info)Arts & Sciences  (Policies)SP2010

L21 German 529Graphs? Trees? The Past, Present and Future of Literary Sociology3.0 Units
Description:In this project-based, collaborative seminar we will consider the merits of some recent sociological approaches to literary and cultural analysis, taking Franco Moretti's essay, Graphs, Maps, Trees (2007) as our starting point. We will ask what is gained and what is lost when we abandon a hermeneutic model that emphasizes the close reading of individual works and turn instead to macro-level analyses informed by the quantitative and statistical techniques of the social sciences. The seminar will consist of three parts. First, we will read a selection of key texts in the sociology of culture (Moretti, Marx, Bourdieu, Benjamin) and consider how their insights might be applied to Goethe's Elective Affinities (1809) and Austen's Mansfield Park (1814). Second, we will evaluate scholarly overviews of 18th and early 19th century German and English literature with an eye toward the sociologically significant areas of inquiry addressed therein (e.g. gender, class, the family, the public sphere, consumer culture). This part of the course will also include presentations by experts in the field of digital humanities (GIS, network analysis, computational linguistics), and we will consider how these new technologies might enable new types of sociologically informed literary analysis, again using Goethe and Austen as case studies. Finally, participants will use their newly acquired knowledge to design collaborative research projects that bring the methodological and thematic insights of the first two parts of the seminar to bear on some area of inquiry related to the period. The hope is that these projects will be undertaken in the spirit of "distant reading" espoused by Moretti, addressing a wide selection of texts and making use of the interpretive strategies made possible by new digital technologies. Participants are encouraged to apply for a summer grant from the Digital Humanities Workshop to continue work on projects related to the seminar.
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Instruction Type:Classroom instruction Grade Options:CPA Fees:
Course Type:HomeSame As:N/AFrequency:Unpredictable / History
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