Digital Humanities

Students get to know the methods of digitization of literary texts and other artistic genres and cultural phenomena. They learn about the current production and reception of digital art, as well as its online curation and archiving. They understand the various possibilities of computer analysis of literary texts and learn about the most important research in the field of computer stylometry and they can critically analyze these methods. They discuss ethical topics that are connected to the digital turn of society and culture.

No prerequisits.

Digitization is ubiquitous in modern life and it is increasingly gaining ground in the humanities as well. Digital humanities approaches information technology from the point of view of humanities, but on the other hand it tries to find answers to traditional humanistic questions with new technological tools. The course presents several areas of contemporary digital humanities:
- digital archives and online databases,
- critical editions of material,
- digitization of tangible cultural heritage,
- critical digital studies,
- culturomics as the study of culture and trends;
- data mining for research into cultural phenomena;
- different computer reading methods;
- stylometry;
- different types of data visualization (maps, grids, graphs, trees);
- the fluid textuality of multimedia projects;
- expanded and paradigm-shifted contexts and potentials of (hyper)textuality;
- e-literature as new media art and discourse.

The course sheds light on the relationship between modern information technologies and literature from the point of view of textual analysis through distant reading. It presents new methods of computer processing of texts and stylometry, which enable the analysis of the used vocabulary, themes, emotional coloring of the texts etc. either in an individual literary work or in a larger literary corpus. The focus is on the ethical aspects of digital humanities, for example on online activism ("hashtag activism"), the critical analysis of new-media and e-literature phenomena, which at the same time derives from and is set within new forms and potentials of textuality, offered (or even dictated) by new technologies.

Knowledge and understanding:
The student:
- gets to know various interdisciplinary areas of digital humanities;
- gets to know the leading methods of researching socio-cultural phenomena with modern technological tools;
- learns about online repositories in the field of culture and art and the processes of their creation;
- gets acquainted with computer methods of researching literary works, both individual texts and larger corpora;
- learns about the various forms of literary creativity in modern digital media;
- understands how different types of digital visualizations of large amounts of data bring new information about the subject of research.

Skills:
The student:
- develops skills for searching online repositories with cultural and artistic content;
- develops the ability to create his or her own corpora of literary texts and devises individual research solutions using digital methodology;
- is able to interpret the results of computer research based on a broader knowledge of literature and culture;
- is able to present the results of his research on digital media;
- learns to map cultural and literary-historical knowledge in a multimedia environment;
- develops the ability to apply stylometric tools to Slovenian and foreign literary texts;
- is able to critically assess modern phenomena such as social media and open access to data online;
- is able to look at modern information technologies from the point of view of their social and cultural role.

• Ramsay, Stephen (2011). Reading Machines: Toward an Algorithmic Criticism. Illinois: University of Illinois Press. Catalogue E-version
• Martin Paul Eve (2021). The Digital Humanities and Literary Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Catalogue
• Jockers, Matthew L. Macroanalysis: Digital Methods and Literary History. Illinois: University of Illinois Press. Catalogue
• Moretti, Franco (2011). Grafi, zemljevidi, drevesa in drugi spisi o svetovni literaturi. Ljubljana: Studia humanitatis. Catalogue
• Maciej Eder, Rybicki, Jan in Kestemont, Mike (2016). Stylometry with R: A Package for Computational Text Analysis. The R Journal 8 (1): 107-121. E-version
• Electronic Literature Organization (2021) E-version
• Electronic Literature Collection E-version
• Electronic Literature Directory E-version

Exam 50 %, seminar 50 %.

Assoc. prof. dr. Ivana Zajc works in the fields of digital humanities, literary theory, narratology, literature didactics, and the history of emotions. She teaches at the School of Humanities, University of Nova Gorica, and is a researcher at the Research Centre for the Humanities at the same university.

1.) MIHURKO, Katja, ZAJC, Ivana, ILIN, Darko, MARINKOVIĆ, Mila. Analize omrežij v elektronski zbirki Pisma: vidik metapodatkov in semantičnih povezav besedišča. Primerjalna književnost. avg. 2024, letn. 47, št. 2, str. 31-44.
2.) ZAJC, Ivana. Analiza 90 slovenskih romanov in opusa Ivana Cankarja z računalniško stilometrijo. Primerjalna književnost. avg. 2024, letn. 47, št. 2, str. 113-126.
3.) ILIN, Darko, MIHURKO, Katja, ZAJC, Ivana, MARINKOVIĆ, Mila. Shaping the electronic collection Letters : discovering epistolary exchange and navigating correspondence metadata. V: HABJAN, Jernej (ur.), MANDIĆ, Lucija (ur.), ZAJC, Ivana (ur.). Big data, small literatures : international conference : conference programme and book of abstracts : 3-4 November 2023, Ljubljana = Masovni podatki, male literature : mednarodna konferenca : program konference in zbornik povzetkov : 3.-4. november 2023, Ljubljana. Nova Gorica: Raziskovalni center za humanistiko Univerze v Novi Gorici: = Research Center for the Humanities at the University of Nova Gorica, 2023. Str. [10-11].
4.) ZAJC, Ivana. Analiza 90 slovenskih romanov in opusa Ivana Cankarja z računalniško stilometrijo. Primerjalna književnost. avg. 2024, letn. 47, št. 2, str. 113-126.
5.) ZAJC, Ivana. Kaj je literarna zmožnost in kako jo preverjamo z maturitetnim esejem. V Novi Gorici: Založba Univerze, 2023.
6.) ZAJC, Ivana, PURG, Peter. Digitalna humanistika in literatura. Nova Gorica: Založba Univerze, 2023.
7.) ZAJC, Ivana. Stylometric analysis of 90 Slovenian novels and the works of Ivan Cankar. V: HABJAN, Jernej (ur.), MANDIĆ, Lucija (ur.), ZAJC, Ivana (ur.). Big data, small literatures : international conference : conference programme and book of abstracts : 3-4 November 2023, Ljubljana = Masovni podatki, male literature : mednarodna konferenca : program konference in zbornik povzetkov : 3.-4. november 2023, Ljubljana. Nova Gorica: Raziskovalni center za humanistiko Univerze v Novi Gorici: = Research Center for the Humanities at the University of Nova Gorica, 2023. Str. [7].
8.) ZAJC, Ivana. "Nucamo vsaj nekaj žensk, ki se zanimajo za poezijo" : samoreprezentacije avtoric iz obdobja moderne v pismih. V: MIHURKO, Katja (ur.), MLAČNIK, Primož (ur.), ZAJC, Ivana (ur.). Ljubim lepa pisma : dopisovanja avtoric slovenske moderne. V Novi Gorici: Založba Univerze, 2024. Str. 536-568.