Textual Studies?

[mnemosyne]

Is anyone doing textual studies? In my current crisis I found myself researching broadly for programs that incorporate digital editing. I stumbled across textual studies, and I am very curious. Does anyone have any advice to offer, any programs to suggest, or any insight? Is anyone else considering this?

I apologize if this is the wrong place to ask; my impression is that textual studies is highly interdisciplinary, and I wanted to see if there are any who focus on English literature within the field with advice to offer.

I am weighing options. My one professor, while telling me that I was incredibly brilliant and more than capable of pursuing a PhD in literature, said that my weakness is that I am not well read at all. Bless that man for gently handling my ego. But his assertment is true. I’ve come late to the English field, and it is impossible to make up for my deficit. I am a research assistant for the same professor, and under his tutelage he has brought me into the fantastic world of databases. I am in love with ECCO and EEBO. I think that my literary interests of preservation and digitzation, coupled with my database experience, might be properly explored here. Not to mention it allows me to explore editing and the historical aspect of texts, from manuscripts to digital publication.

[spartaca]

While I'm not into digital or textual studies, I would like to comment on what your professor views as your major weakness...

I consider one of my main weaknesses to be that I'm not as well read as some of my cohort, but in a recent discussion with my advisor, she made the point that that's why I'm in grad school. Even if you'd been in English for your entire undergrad, you'd still not be as conversant in the major works of your field as you'll eventually need to be. That's why there are orals exams & qualifying exams, & why most programs have distribution requirements. The whole point of graduate studies is to read, think, learn, and write MORE. Who cares if you're not as well read as your colleagues? The fact that you recognize it and have the drive to change it is one thing that makes for a quality applicant. And, seriously, admissions committees won't be able to gauge your level of familiarity with canonical works from your application unless they rely heavily on the GRE subject test, a test that many departments aren't requiring anymore because it isn't actually representative of one's ability to engage in graduate level work.

I hope that your professor was also encouraging while pointing out this "weakness." Everyone is academia is insecure and comes with weaknesses... No one ever thinks she's read enough of what she should have read. And I'd say that this applies for both theoretical and literary works.

Here are just a few of my "OMG, how have you gotten this far without reading that?!" works: Moby Dick, Jane Eyre, Beloved.

Bottom line: graduate school is for learning--it's where you'll become well read.

[Branwen daughter of Llyr]

While I'm not into digital or textual studies, I would like to comment on what your professor views as your major weakness...

I consider one of my main weaknesses to be that I'm not as well read as some of my cohort, but in a recent discussion with my advisor, she made the point that that's why I'm in grad school. Even if you'd been in English for your entire undergrad, you'd still not be as conversant in the major works of your field as you'll eventually need to be. That's why there are orals exams & qualifying exams, & why most programs have distribution requirements. The whole point of graduate studies is to read, think, learn, and write MORE. Who cares if you're not as well read as your colleagues? The fact that you recognize it and have the drive to change it is one thing that makes for a quality applicant. And, seriously, admissions committees won't be able to gauge your level of familiarity with canonical works from your application unless they rely heavily on the GRE subject test, a test that many departments aren't requiring anymore because it isn't actually representative of one's ability to engage in graduate level work.

I hope that your professor was also encouraging while pointing out this "weakness." Everyone is academia is insecure and comes with weaknesses... No one ever thinks she's read enough of what she should have read. And I'd say that this applies for both theoretical and literary works.

Here are just a few of my "OMG, how have you gotten this far without reading that?!" works: Moby Dick, Jane Eyre, Beloved.

Bottom line: graduate school is for learning--it's where you'll become well read.

Indeed. I consider myself fairly well read, yet there is a slew of canonical works I've never even glanced at (Beloved is one of those with me, as well). Especially the modern variety. I was in the medieval and renaissance concentration in college, and avoided most modern works like the plague (although I have a penchant for Tom Stoppard, Beckett, Wilde, and Henry James). Some of my missing reading - Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Kate Chopin, and, shocker, I've never read Frankenstein.

I'm planning on taking at least one or two 19th century classes in grad school to even out some stuff.

No one out of undergrad has read enough of what they should read as English scholars. And the only reason I'm so versed in many modern playwrights, is because I was a theater major first, and had to study Wilde, Brecht, Shepard, Pinter, and Tennessee Williams, as well as Shakespeare and Restoration stuff. And even as a medievalist I haven't read enough in my field. That's why we're going to grad school, isn't it?

(And I have no clue about textual studies, sorry...)

[Sparky]

FSU - History of Text Technologies graduate program (according to the website, it is a concentration within the English PhD or MA)

ETA: FSU has awesome medievalists, so if that's your thing (I think you mentioned Chaucer?), definitely check it out. And I'm pretty sure several of them are involved with the HTT program!

Edited March 31, 2010 by Sparky

[mnemosyne]

I hope that your professor was also encouraging while pointing out this "weakness." Everyone is academia is insecure and comes with weaknesses... No one ever thinks she's read enough of what she should have read. And I'd say that this applies for both theoretical and literary works.

Here are just a few of my "OMG, how have you gotten this far without reading that?!" works: Moby Dick, Jane Eyre, Beloved.

Bottom line: graduate school is for learning--it's where you'll become well read.

My professor wasn't dismissing me for graduate school. He was only offering advice. I do understand that it is extremely hard to catch up. I never thought I would study Literature so I never made a point of reading widely. I fell prey to the adolescent belief that reading wasn't cool. My core literature classes at my university are broad surveys. I'm taking the final course now, the capstone, which is all theory and thesis. My professor is very supportive, and he said I should consider a Masters at least. But, listening between the lines, I know that he would prefer I attempt a PhD.

No one out of undergrad has read enough of what they should read as English scholars.

Honestly, I don't think anyone ever achieves a point where they feel they have comfortably read enough.

ETA: FSU has awesome medievalists, so if that's your thing (I think you mentioned Chaucer?), definitely check it out. And I'm pretty sure several of them are involved with the HTT program!

Oh my goodness... I think this program practically has me sold on the idea. I need to go and now. What I like about a program like textual studies, history of texts and technology, whatever you want to call it, is that it is interdisciplinary and it allows one so much room. I feel like I can really take control of my studies. And, the best part, for me at least, is that I won't have to necessarily pigeonhole myself into a literary time period. I could justify the study of my beloved Chaucer and Shakespeare if I wished to study manuscript and book publication history and the problems of adapting such texts to digital media.

[greekdaph]

Check out Theresa Tinkle's work, too. She's at the University of Michigan and is mainly a Chaucer scholar, but she works on material textuality--not so much the digital stuff, but more the theorizing of manuscript-reading. EEBO and Google Books both have strong connections to Michigan as well--it may be worth looking not only at the English department but also at the School of Information's offerings in digital archiving.

[strokeofmidnight]

Is anyone doing textual studies? In my current crisis I found myself researching broadly for programs that incorporate digital editing. I stumbled across textual studies, and I am very curious. Does anyone have any advice to offer, any programs to suggest, or any insight? Is anyone else considering this?

I apologize if this is the wrong place to ask; my impression is that textual studies is highly interdisciplinary, and I wanted to see if there are any who focus on English literature within the field with advice to offer.

I am weighing options. My one professor, while telling me that I was incredibly brilliant and more than capable of pursuing a PhD in literature, said that my weakness is that I am not well read at all. Bless that man for gently handling my ego. But his assertment is true. I’ve come late to the English field, and it is impossible to make up for my deficit. I am a research assistant for the same professor, and under his tutelage he has brought me into the fantastic world of databases. I am in love with ECCO and EEBO. I think that my literary interests of preservation and digitzation, coupled with my database experience, might be properly explored here. Not to mention it allows me to explore editing and the historical aspect of texts, from manuscripts to digital publication.

It depends on where you want to go with this. There are several different programs that work on textual studies, medium studies...also try googling "history of the book." I know of graduate students at Berkeley, NYU, Michigan, and UPenn who are working on these issues in one way or another. This topic (at least in the form that I encountered) tends to cross field lines. One student at Berkeley is working on *both* the medieval manuscript and the digital age. Another (different) Berkeley student works mostly on print culture, the epistemology of print production...but is also writing on the kindle and the changes that it introduces into how we interact with books/materiality of reading. I don't have specific examples for the other programs, but I do know that medium, media, history of the book (broadly construed), textuality seem very important to NYU: that was certainly how they defined themselves during their recruitment/interview weekend. Most of the professors that I know of who are working on this issue are 18th centuryist, but that probably says more about my myoptic perspective than the program on the whole. I know less about UPenn, but it routinely comes up as one of the top programs for the "history of the book." This is a slightly different angle, but if you're interested in poetics (which, of course, also deals with textuality and medium), UPenn's poetics faculty is second to none. I did not encounter Michigan students who are interested in textuality (largely because I wasn't specifically looking for it), but several of their professors seem interested in this topic. In addition to Theresa Tinkle, Tina Lupton (an 18th centuryist) is currently working on textuality, medium, questions of how we read...etc. If you're looking at the digital stuff, also look into Tung-Hui Hu. He's asking question about film, voice, textuality, and medium in ways that are really fascinating. He's not in my field, but I still find his work to be relevant for the breadth of the questions that he poses.

If you wouldn't mind offering a bit more about your work, I might be able to give more specific suggestions. Textuality is such a huge topic, which takes on different forms in different fields. In any case, I think it's cool and exciting, and hope that you find a good place to pursue it.

[mnemosyne]

If you wouldn't mind offering a bit more about your work, I might be able to give more specific suggestions. Textuality is such a huge topic, which takes on different forms in different fields. In any case, I think it's cool and exciting, and hope that you find a good place to pursue it.

If I pursue this, I believe I would do it from the slant of History of the Book. I'm interested in the preservation and digitization of texts. Of course this process can provide fantastic opportunities for scholarship, but I'm interested in a limitation, namely the interaction between OCR and typeface. I spend a ridiculous amount of time in ECCO, and I've discovered ways to manipulate searches to produce/augment results when the typeface is problematic. I believe I would be focusing on the evolution of typography and print production. I'm not sure if this is an acceptable thing to pursue. It may be considered old news. But at least I figure it is a starting point, and it allows me to research across multiple literary periods, such as Medieval up through the 18th century. Digital editing is also an interest. I figure it fits well. I think overall I am interested in exposure to older texts through digital medias and their adaptation to such media. I'm enamored with old texts.

[greekdaph]

Your interests sound fascinating!

Check out, too, the Rare Book School in Charlottesville--they have some courses about digital archiving:

http://www.rarebookschool.org/schedule/

And UVa in general is a great school for doing history of the book-type work.

[Historiogaffe]

I only know of this baby: http://bookhistory.fis.utoronto.ca/ I have also, though, noticed a number of universities (UCLA springs to mind) that list "Book History" – sometimes along with electronic media – as an area of specialization for their faculty. So mining English faculty for groups of interested profs might be worthwhile...