‘Reading by Numbers: Recalibrating the Literary Field’ proposes and demonstrates a new digital approach to literary history. Drawing on bibliographical information on the Australian novel in the Aust Lit database, the book addresses debates and issues in literary studies through a method that combines book history’s pragmatic approach to literary data with the digital humanities’ idea of computer modelling as an experimental and iterative practice. As well as showcasing this method, the case studies in ‘Reading by Numbers’ provide a revised history of the Australian novel, focusing on the nineteenth century and the decades since the end of the Second World War, and engaging with a range of themes including literary and cultural value, authorship, gender, genre and the transnational circulation of fiction. The book’s findings challenge established arguments in Australian literary studies, book history, feminism and gender studies, while presenting innovative ways of understanding literature, publishing, authorship and reading, and the relationships between them. More broadly, by demonstrating critical ways in which the growing number of digital archives in the humanities can be mined, modelled and visualised, ‘Reading by Numbers’ offers new directions and scope for digital humanities research.
Table of Content
Acknowledgements; List of Tables and Figures; Introduction: A New History of the Australian Novel; Chapter 1. Literary Studies in the Digital Age; Chapter 2. Beyond the Book: Publishing in the Nineteenth Century; Chapter 3. Nostalgia and the Novel: Looking Back, Looking Forward; Chapter 4. Recovering Gender: Rethinking the Nineteenth Century; Chapter 5. The ‘Rise’ of the Woman Novelist: Popular and Literary Trends; Conclusion: Literary Studies in the Digital Future; Notes; Bibliography; Index
About the author
Katherine Bode is Head of the Digital Humanities Hub at the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.More ebooks from the same author(s) / Editor
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