“Modeling Absence: Digital Text Analysis and Sexual Violence in Shakespeare’s Drama”
Dr. Whitney Sperrazza, Hall Center for the Humanities, University of Kansas
Friday, September 28th at 12:30pm
Digital Scholarship Commons in the Mearns Centre for Learning, McPherson Library
Organized by the Dept. of English and UVic Libraries
Can we use text analysis tools to trace absence? This talk situates computation and close reading alongside feminist digital critique to explore the absence of sexual violence in the language of early modern drama. Scenes of sexual violence in this dramatic archive often occur offstage, and the violence is then coded within or absent from the play’s language. How do current text mining tools, which purport to measure semantic presence, account for such violence? Taking Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus as my focus, I outline how topic modeling marks not only Lavinia’s continued presence outside the play’s language but also her centrality to the plot—a structural, rather than semantic, legibility. This talk offers alternative possibilities for approaching text analysis, while prompting us to revisit our readings of sexual violence in early modern drama.
Dr. Whitney Sperrazza is the Digital Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow at the Hall Center for the Humanities, University of Kansas. Her digital work brings together computational analysis and digital maker cultures, with particular interest in how digital methods can help us to better understand the violent effects of language.
Can we use text analysis tools to trace absence? This talk situates computation and close reading alongside feminist digital critique to explore the absence of sexual violence in the language of early modern drama. Scenes of sexual violence in this dramatic archive often occur offstage, and the violence is then coded within or absent from the play’s language. How do current text mining tools, which purport to measure semantic presence, account for such violence? Taking Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus as my focus, I outline how topic modeling marks not only Lavinia’s continued presence outside the play’s language but also her centrality to the plot—a structural, rather than semantic, legibility. This talk offers alternative possibilities for approaching text analysis, while prompting us to revisit our readings of sexual violence in early modern drama.
Dr. Whitney Sperrazza is the Digital Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow at the Hall Center for the Humanities, University of Kansas. Her digital work brings together computational analysis and digital maker cultures, with particular interest in how digital methods can help us to better understand the violent effects of language.