Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-zzh7m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-29T13:05:21.234Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Digital Humanities, Inc.: Literary Criticism and the Fate of a Profession

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Andrew Kopec
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The popularization of the digital humanities and the return to formalism are overdetermined by the perceived crises in the humanities. On the one hand, the new formalism harks back to a professionalizing strategy begun by the New Critics with John Crowe Ransom's “Criticism, Inc.,” drawing strength from close reading's original polemic against industrialism. On the other hand, the digital humanities reimagine professional labor in ways that seemingly approximate postindustrial norms. These contradictory but inextricably related visions of professional futures restage a conflict between literature and data, reading and making, that has been misrecognized as a conflict between literature and history. Approaching these tensions by way of historicist critique can illuminate the extent to which the debate between literature and data will define critical practice in the twenty-first century.

Type
Introduction
Information
PMLA , Volume 131 , Issue 2 , March 2016 , pp. 324 - 339
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2016

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Abrams, M. H. “The Fourth Dimension of a Poem” and Other Essays. New York: Norton, 2012. Print.Google Scholar
Bartolovich, Crystal. “Humanities of Scale: Marxism, Surface Reading—and Milton.” PMLA 127.1 (2012): 115–21. Print.Google Scholar
Bell, Daniel. The Coming of Post-industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting. New York: Basic, 1976. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berry, David M. “Post-digital Humanities: Computation and Cultural Critique in the Arts and Humanities.” Educause Review 49.3 (2014): n. pag. Web. 10 June 2014.Google Scholar
Best, Stephen, and Marcus, Sharon. “Surface Reading: An Introduction.” Representations 108 (2009): 1–21. PDF file.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bogel, Fredric V. New Formalist Criticism: Theory and Practice. New York: Palgrave, 2013. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brooks, Cleanth. “Irony and ‘Ironic’ Poetry.” College English 9.5 (1948): 231–37. PDF file.Google Scholar
Brooks, Cleanth The Well Wrought Urn. New York: Harcourt, 1947. Print.Google Scholar
Brooks, Cleanth, and Warren, Robert Penn. Understanding Poetry: An Anthology for College Students. New York: Holt, 1950. Print.Google Scholar
Byerly, Alison. “Digital Humanities, Digitizing Humanity.” Educause Review 49.3 (2014): n. pag. Web. 20 May 2014.Google Scholar
Castells, Manuel. The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture. Vol. 1. Maiden: Blackwell, 1996. Print.Google Scholar
Conkin, Paul K. The Southern Agrarians. Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 1988. Print.Google Scholar
Cordell, Ryan. “‘Taken Possession Of’: The Reprinting and Reauthorship of Hawthorne's ‘Celestial Railroad’ in the Antebellum Religious Press.” Digital Humanities Quarterly 7.1 (2013): n. pag. Web. 6 Nov. 2014.Google Scholar
Davidson, Cathy. “Humanities 2.0: Promise, Perils, Predictions.” PMLA 123.3 (2008): 707–17. Print.Google Scholar
Davidson, Cathy “Strangers on a Train.” Academe 97.5 (2011): n. pag. Web. 29 Aug. 2012.Google Scholar
Deegan, Marilyn. “‘This Ever More Amorphous Thing Called the Digital Humanities’: Whither the Humanities Project?” Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 13.1 (2014): 24–41. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Devereux, Cecily. “‘A Kind of Dual Attentiveness’: Close Reading after the New Criticism.” Rereading the New Criticism. Hickman and McIntyre 218-30.Google Scholar
Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1996. Print.Google Scholar
Earhart, Amy E., and Jewell, Andrew, eds. The American Literature Scholar in the Digital Age. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2011. Print.Google Scholar
Gallagher, Catherine, and Greenblatt, Stephen. Practicing New Historicism. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2000. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gallop, Jane. “The Historicization of Literary Studies and the Fate of Close Reading.” Profession (2007): 181–86. Print.Google Scholar
Gang, Joshua. “Behaviorism and the Beginnings of Close Reading.” ELH 78.1 (2011): 1–25. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gold, Matthew K., ed. Debates in the Digital Humanities. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2012. Print.Google Scholar
Gossett, Kathie. “Day of DH: Defining the Digital Humanities.” Gold 67-74.Google Scholar
Grusin, Richard. “The Dark Side of Digital Humanities: Dispatches from Two Recent MLA Conventions.” Differences 25.1 (2014): 79–92. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guillory, John. “Close Reading: Prologue and Epilogue.” ADE Bulletin 149 (2010): 8–14. PDF file.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guillory, John Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1993. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guillory, John “Preprofessionalism: What Graduate Students Want.” ADE Bulletin 113 (1996): 4–8. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harvey, David. The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1989. Print.Google Scholar
Hickman, Miranda B. “Rereading the New Criticism.” Introduction. Hickman and McIntyre 1-24.Google Scholar
Hickman, Miranda B., and McIntyre, John D., eds. Rereading the New Criticism. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2012. Print.Google Scholar
Jancovich, Mark. The Cultural Politics of the New Criticism. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jockers, Matthew L. Macroanalysis: Digital Methods and Literary History. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 2013. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirschenbaum, Matthew G. “What Is Digital Humanities and What's It Doing in English Departments?” ADE Bulletin 150 (2010): 55–61. PDF file.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirschenbaum, Matthew G. “What Is ‘Digital Humanities,‘ and Why Are They Saying Such Terrible Things about It?” Differences 25.1 (2014): 46–63. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, Maurice S. “Searching the Archives with Dickens and Hawthorne: Databases and Aesthetic Judgment after the New Historicism.” ELH 79.3 (2012): 747–71. PDF file.Google Scholar
Lentricchia, Frank, and DuBois, Andrew, eds. Close Reading: The Reader. Durham: Duke UP, 2003. Print.Google Scholar
Lesjak, Carolyn. “Reading Dialectically.” Criticism 55.2 (2013): 233–77. Print.Google Scholar
Levine, Caroline. “Strategic Formalism: Toward a New Method in Cultural Studies.” Victorian Studies 48.4 (2006): 625–57. Print.Google Scholar
Levine, George. “Reclaiming the Aesthetic.” Introduction. Aesthetics and Ideology. Ed. Levine, . New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1994. 1–28. Print.Google Scholar
Levinson, Marjorie. “What Is the New Formalism?” PMLA 122.2 (2007): 558–69. Print.Google Scholar
Liu, Alan. “Close, Distant, and Unexpected Reading: New Forms of Literary Reading in the Digital Age.” HUMlab. Umeå U, 10 May 2011. Web. 15 May 2012.Google Scholar
Liu, Alan The Laws of Cool: Knowledge Work and the Culture of Information. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2004. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liu, Alan “The State of the Digital Humanities: A Report and a Critique.” Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 11.1–2 (2012): 8–41. PDF file.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liu, Alan “What Is the Meaning of the Digital Humanities to the Humanities?” PMLA 128.2 (2013): 409–23. Print.Google Scholar
Liu, Alan “Where Is Cultural Criticism in the Digital Humanities?” Gold 490-509.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lorenz, Chris. “If You're So Smart, Why Are You under Surveillance? Universities, Neoliberalism, and New Public Management.” Critical Inquiry 38.3 (2012): 599–629. PDF file.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malewitz, Raymond. “Regeneration through Misuse: Rugged Consumerism in Contemporary American Culture.” PMLA 127.3 (2012): 526–41. Print.Google Scholar
McGann, Jerome. Radiant Textuality: Literature after the World Wide Web. New York: Palgrave, 2001. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michaels, Walter Benn. The Gold Standard and the Logic of Naturalism: American Literature at the Turn of the Century. Berkeley: U of California P, 1987. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, W. J. T. “The Commitment to Form; or, Still Crazy after All These Years.” PMLA 118.2 (2003): 321–25. Print.Google Scholar
Moretti, Franco. Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for a Literary History. London: Verso, 2005. Print.Google Scholar
Moretti, Franco “Style, Inc.: Reflections on Seven Thousand Titles (British Novels, 1740-1850).” Critical Inquiry 36.1 (2009): 134–58. PDF file.Google Scholar
Otter, Samuel. “An Aesthetics in All Things.” Representations 104 (2008): 116–25. PDF file.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Otter, Samuel, and Sanborn, Geoffrey. “Aesthetics and Melville.” Introduction. Otter and Sanborn, Melville 1–10.Google Scholar
Otter, Samuel, and Sanborn, Geoffrey. Melville and Aesthetics. New York: Palgrave, 2011. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pannapacker, William. “‘Big Tent Digital Humanities,‘ a View from the Edge, Part 1.” Chronicle of Higher Education. Chronicle of Higher Educ., 31 July 2011. Web. 1 June 2012.Google Scholar
Pannapacker, William “Pannapacker at MLA: Digital Humanities Triumphant?” Chronicle of Higher Education. Chronicle of Higher Educ., 8 Jan. 2011. Web. 15 Apr. 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Papillon, Terry. “Isocrates' Techne and Rhetorical Pedagogy.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 25 (1995): 149–63. PDF file.Google Scholar
Patel, Vimal. “MLA's Effort to Reshape Ph.D. Misses Mark, Some Say.” Chronicle of Higher Education. Chronicle of Higher Educ., 4 June 2014. Web. 4 June 2014.Google Scholar
Potter, Roseanne. “Literary Criticism and Literary Computing: The Difficulty of a Synthesis.” Computers and the Humanities 22.2 (1988): 91–97. PDF file.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pressman, Jessica, and Swanstrom, Lisa. “The Literary and/as the Digital Humanities.” Digital Humanities Quarterly 7.1 (2013): n. pag. Web. 6 Nov. 2014.Google Scholar
Ramsay, Stephen. “On Building.” Stephen Ramsay. N.p., 8 Jan. 2011. Web. 17 June 2012.Google Scholar
Ramsay, Stephen Reading Machines: Toward an Algorithmic Criticism. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 2011. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ramsay, Stephen “Who's In and Who's Out.” Stephen Ramsay. N.p., 8 Jan. 2011. Web. 19 June 2012.Google Scholar
Ransom, John Crowe. “The Aesthetic of Regionalism.” Young and Hindle 45-58.Google Scholar
Ransom, John Crowe “Criticism, Inc.” Young and Hindle 93-106.Google Scholar
Ransom, John Crowe “Land! An Answer to the Unemployment Problem.” Harper's Monthly Magazine July 1932: 216-24. PDF file.Google Scholar
Ransom, John Crowe The New Criticism. Norfolk: New Directions, 1941. Print.Google Scholar
Ransom, John Crowe “Reconstructed but Unregenerate.” I'll Take My Stand. By Twelve Southerners. New York: Harper, 1962. 1–27. Print.Google Scholar
Rieger, Oya. “Framing Digital Humanities: The Role of New Media in Humanities Scholarship.” First Monday 15.10 (2010): n. pag. Web. 4 Oct. 2010.Google Scholar
Rigal, Laura. “Pulled by the Line: Speed and Photography in Moby-Dick.” Otter and Sanborn, Melville 103–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schryer, Stephen. “Fantasies of the New Class: The New Criticism, Harvard Sociology and the Idea of the University.” PMLA 122.3 (2007): 663–78. Print.Google Scholar
Staten, Henry. “Art as Techne; or, The Intentional Fallacy and the Unfinished Project of Formalism.” A Companion to the Philosophy of Literature. Ed. Hagberg, Garry L. and Jost, Walter. Malden: Wiley, 2010. 420–35. Print.Google Scholar
Straumsheim, Carl. “Digital Humanities Bubble.” Inside Higher Ed. Inside Higher Ed, 8 May 2014. Web. 8 May 2014.Google Scholar
Svensson, Patrik. “Envisioning the Digital Humanities.” Digital Humanities Quarterly 6.1 (2012): n. pag. Web. 6 Aug. 2012.Google Scholar
Theile, Verena, and Tredennick, Linda, eds. New Formalisms and Literary Theory. New York: Palgrave, 2013. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilkens, Matthew. “Canons, Close Reading, and the Evolution of Method.” Gold 249-58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Jeffrey J. “Deconstructing Academe: The Birth of Critical University Studies.” Chronicle of Higher Education. Chronicle of Higher Educ., 19 Feb. 2012. Web. 13 Apr. 2013.Google Scholar
Wolfson, Susan J. “Reading for Form.” MLQ: Modern Language Quarterly 61.1 (2000): 1–16. PDF file.Google Scholar
Young, Thomas Daniel, and Hindle, John, eds. Selected Essays of John Crowe Ransom. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1984. Print.Google Scholar