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Reading Machines Stephen Ramsay

Reading Machines By Stephen Ramsay

Reading Machines by Stephen Ramsay


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Summary

Rethinking digital literary criticism by situating computational work within the broader context of the humanities

Reading Machines Summary

Reading Machines: Toward and Algorithmic Criticism by Stephen Ramsay

Besides familiar and now-commonplace tasks that computers do all the time, what else are they capable of? Stephen Ramsay's intriguing study of computational text analysis examines how computers can be used as reading machines to open up entirely new possibilities for literary critics. Computer-based text analysis has been employed for the past several decades as a way of searching, collating, and indexing texts. Despite this, the digital revolution has not penetrated the core activity of literary studies: interpretive analysis of written texts. Computers can handle vast amounts of data, allowing for the comparison of texts in ways that were previously too overwhelming for individuals, but they may also assist in enhancing the entirely necessary role of subjectivity in critical interpretation. Reading Machines discusses the importance of this new form of text analysis conducted with the assistance of computers. Ramsay suggests that the rigidity of computation can be enlisted in the project of intuition, subjectivity, and play.

Reading Machines Reviews

Reading Machines makes an important and provocative contribution to the fields of literary criticism and digital humanities. With sound scholarship and lucid argumentation, this book will stir up debate among both traditionalists and digital humanities scholars.--David L. Hoover, author of Stylistics: Prospect and Retrospect
This significant book by the progenitor of the term 'algorithmic criticism' packs a lot into its slender binding. Pithy, readable, and full of striking turns of phrase, it reaches for a broader audience for the debates over the application of computers to the critical enterprise.--Literary and Linguistic Computing

Anchored by his incisive, prescient, and influential essay 'Toward an Algorithmic Criticism,' Stephen Ramsay's book is filled with trenchant critical arguments and paradigmatic examples that traverse contemporary literary computing to argue that doing technology is now not necessarily different from doing humanities; it is in fact another humanities activity. Human beings live, work, feel, express, and reflect. Speech, writing, images, and now text-mining are ways of 'doing,' and understanding, the literature of the human. Ramsay makes his case to both digital humanities scholars and the broader audience of the humanities with a unique blend of technical authority and open-ended, accessible humanistic inquiry.--Alan Liu, author of Local Transcendence: Essays on Postmodern Historicism and the Database

About Stephen Ramsay

Stephen Ramsay is an associate professor of English at the University of Nebraska and has written and lectured widely on subjects related to literary theory and software design for humanities.

Table of Contents

Preconditions; An Algorithmic Criticism; Potential Literature; Potential Readings; The Turing Text; 'Patacomputing; Postconditions Works Cited

Additional information

GOR006521434
9780252078200
0252078209
Reading Machines: Toward and Algorithmic Criticism by Stephen Ramsay
Used - Very Good
Paperback
University of Illinois Press
20111130
112
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

Customer Reviews - Reading Machines