'A thing not beginning and not ending': using digital tools to distant-read Gertrude Stein's The Making of Americans.

The particular reading difficulties engendered by the complicated patterns of repetition in The Making of Americans by Gertrude Stein make it almost impossible to read this text in a traditional, linear manner. However, by visualizing certain patterns and looking at the text 'from a distance' throug...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:Literary & Linguistic Computing Vol. 23; no. 3; pp. 361 - 382
Autor principal: Clement, Tanya E.
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Oxford University Press / USA Sep2008
Materias:
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
fields @attributes:
  recordID: 1
pdfLink:
plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=35574715&site=ehost-live
header:
  @attributes:
    shortDbName: hlh
    uiTerm: 35574715
    longDbName: Humanities International Complete
    uiTag: AN
  controlInfo:
    bkinfo:
    jinfo:
      jid:
        02681145
        BJ1
      jtl: Literary & Linguistic Computing
      issn: 02681145
      maglogo: N
    pubinfo:
      dt: Sep2008
      vid: 23
      iid: 3
      pid: 622
      pub: Oxford University Press / USA
    artinfo:
      ui:
        35574715
        10.1093/llc/fqn020
      ppf: 361
      ppct: 21
      formats:
        fmt:
          @attributes:
            type: P
            size: 926KB
      tig:
        atl: 'A thing not beginning and not ending': using digital tools to distant-read Gertrude Stein's The Making of Americans.
      aug:
        au: Clement, Tanya E.
        affil: University of Maryland, College Park, USA
      su:
        Making of Americans, The (Book : Stein)
        Stein, Gertrude, 1874-1946
        Reading ability testing
        Reading aids & devices
        Metadata
        Visual programming languages (Computer science)
        Transmission of texts
        United States
      sug:
        subj:
          United States
          Making of Americans, The (Book : Stein)
          Stein, Gertrude, 1874-1946
          Reading ability testing
          Reading aids & devices
          Metadata
          Visual programming languages (Computer science)
          Transmission of texts
      ab: The particular reading difficulties engendered by the complicated patterns of repetition in The Making of Americans by Gertrude Stein make it almost impossible to read this text in a traditional, linear manner. However, by visualizing certain patterns and looking at the text 'from a distance' through textual analytics and visualizations, we are enabled to make readings that were formerly inhibited. Initial analysis on Making within the MONK (metadata offer new knowledge) project (http://www.monkproject.org/) has yielded evidence which suggests that the text is intricately and purposefully structured. Using text mining to retrieve repetitive patterns and treating each as a single object makes it possible to visualize and compare the three dimensions upon which these repetitions co-occurby length, frequency, and location-in a single view. Certainly, reading The Making of Americans in a traditional way appears to have yielded limited material for scholarly work, but reading the text differently, as an object of pairings or as parts of combinations, ultimately works in contrast to the supposition that the text is only meaningful to the extent that it defeats making meaning. A distant view of the text's structure allows us to read the text as an object that becomes, as it continues to turn in on itself with a centrifugal force, a whole history without beginning or ending.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
    refInfo:
    copyright:
      @attributes:
        flag: Y
      custom: © 2019 EADH: The European Association for Digital Humanities.
      item: Literary & Linguistic Computing
      holder: Oxford University Press / USA
      dt:
        @attributes:
          year: 2008
    holdings:
      @attributes:
        islocal: N