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Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 33, No. 337. Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London Hosted by King's Digital Lab www.dhhumanist.org Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org Date: 2019-10-22 15:22:43+00:00 From: Jim RoviraSubject: Re: [Humanist] 33.336: what we're not ready for Great response, Bill, and thank you for the details and clarification. I correct myself -- I'm not aware of that kind of work being widely conducted either. I suspect the problem might be that language isn't really computational. It doesn't unfold word after word. One metaphor is that it's a garden of forking paths, but even that is too linear. A computer could manage that. A word isn't a meaning -- it's a range of denotations and connotations that are continually creating new paths that simultaneously create and contradict others. It's a series of self involved and self-defeating loops. In computational terms, the average literary text is a mass of system crashes. What we might do instead is ask what kinds of approaches to literary texts most resemble forms of computation already. Might be tempting to say "New Criticism," but so many of them were in love with paradox: it's not interesting until the system crashes. Maybe some kinds of formalism, especially perhaps Russian formalism, and perhaps this might be an interesting way to revive myth criticism, say, Frye? However, have you looked into Robert Brandom? Jim R On Tue, Oct 22, 2019 at 1:30 AM Humanist wrote: > > I hesitate to offer that passage because, as far as I can tell, Moretti's > not > calling for the kind of theoretical inquiry I've been referring to, though > what he IS calling for interests me a great deal. I quote it, though, > because it > does point up pretty much the same issue. To invoke a cliche, computation > is > always the bridesmaid, never the bride. > > BB > > _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe at: http://dhhumanist.org/Restricted List posts to: humanist@dhhumanist.org List info and archives at at: http://dhhumanist.org Listmember interface at: http://dhhumanist.org/Restricted/ Subscribe at: http://dhhumanist.org/membership_form.php
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