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Where my Duke applicants at?!


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I am a bit disappointed in his neutral and stale argument, which upon first reading does seem polemical and controversial (though indeed reductive to the digital humanities field--especially in his characterization of digital data collection as the 'reverse' of non-digital literary analysis; how's that for black-and-white myopia).

But, he repeats the argument that contextualized readings must coincide with distant readings. Or, humans can work alongside machines--which is ultimately a fair argument to make, that the one should not replace the other and are in fact co-dependent. Although, his reading of Milton is original and innovative (or is it?); and is possible because of the rising significance of distant reading, which prompts my second, more distant reading of the article, which is that he's not really deadset against digital humanities as he would have us believe because of the fact that what he considers an original reading of "Areopagitica" draws from formalist analysis coupled with "matters of statistical frequency and pattern." In other words, he has reaped the harvest of distant reading!

Essentially in his repetition of an argument already made in the digital humanities and long-standing (though substantially unacknowledged and marginalized by his efforts on ephemeralizing digital scholarship), he poses as a critic who stands outside the field, and by extension is 'more qualified' to criticize. Which is of course, problematic.

Great article though!

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wait... but his point with the milton reading is that it isn't a distant reading. it's a formalist-linguistic reading, but it certainly isn't "possible because of the rising significance of distant reading." as he points out: "The direction of my inferences is critical: first the interpretive hypothesis and then the formal pattern, which attains the status of noticeability only because an interpretation already in place is picking it out. The direction is the reverse in the digital humanities: first you run the numbers, and then you see if they prompt an interpretive hypothesis."

he is concerned with "matters of statistical frequency and pattern," but i take his point to be that analysis always has been concerned with such things; the direction of inference of traditional analysis is just entirely opposite of that of the digital humanities. new trends in distant reading don't make possible the kind of analysis he does in the article (see, for instance, Nabokov's frequent use of linguistic tools to perform readings), but in fact perverts the kind of reading he performs. i don't know if i agree with his claims, but i do think the above post is a misreading.

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Right, but then one can argue that a formalist-linguistic reading is distant reading; used to track language, words, letters. For example, in the article he isolates the "chiasmic pattern" between b and p, which is definitely a technique in distant reading. So, if these are remarkably similar, what is the basis of his argument? That one should come first, namely distant reading must follow close reading? Doesn't this then also establish a hierarchy between the different approaches and a kind of 'value judgment'?

I admire your close reading and you have really stayed close to the argument.

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Just got an email from Duke (Literature) with an invitation to attend 'prospectives weekend,' Feb 17-18. Excited! They also say in the message: "Our final admissions decisions will be made closer to March 1." Has anyone else heard anything?

Edited by ivandub
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Just got an email from Duke with an invitation to attend 'prospectives weekend,' Feb 17-18. Excited! They also say in the message: "Our final admissions decisions will be made closer to March 1." Has anyone else heard anything?

OH LORD. Here comes the aforementioned vomiting and weeping. Nope, nothing in my inbox... Are you Lit or English, ivandub?

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Thanks all for the congrats. Now there's just the stress of figuring out if I'll be able to go to the interviews (I live overseas so it wouldn't be easy). From the email it sounds like they can make arrangements for those who can't make it to the weekend and wouldn't simply dismiss their applications, but still I'm sure those who attend the weekend will be at some advantage

Edited by ivandub
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Common sense seems to suggest that they would send all the invitations out all at once, but I am fiercely clinging to the hope that I have at least until the end of the day to receive an email...

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I got the interview e-mail this morning, too, much to my utter amazement (I'm one of the two on the results board). I assume it was the same email that ivandub received (congrats! message me if you like and we can trade info and neuroses). Good luck to everybody who's still waiting - here's hoping for a second wave of positive e-mails for you!

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And!

Let this be encouragement to those who worry about stats and such, as mine are hardly stratospheric:

GPA: 3.24 (major 3.4)

V: 690

Q: 630

W: 5.5

My primary interest is memory (and forgetting and nostalgia) in (post-)socialist/communist/soviet lit.

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