Hacking Moby-Dick
This is an experimental seminar series at the Institute of English Studies on how to apply digital approaches to literature. We’ll be focusing on Moby-Dick. Stay tuned as we compile material over the months of April, May, and June.
To access the list of digital resources, click here.
Rough plan
Week 1 (17 April):
Introductions; how Moby-Dick was made, and how the British edition differs from the American one.
Brief Introduction to Voyant Tools.
Access the Voyant visualisation of Moby-Dick
Week 2 (24 April):
Digital demo: Using Voyant tools for ‘distant reading’; using Melville Electronic Library’s Moby-Dick to read a ‘fluid text’.
Read/discuss: Eytmology, Extracts, and Chapters 1–15.
Access the Discussion Page.
Week 3 (1 May):
Digital demo: how to use Melville’s Marginalia Online.
Read/discuss: Chapters 16–35
Access the Discussion Page
Week 4 (8 May)
Digital demo: how to use Melville’s Marginalia Online, continued.
Read/discuss: Chapters 36–55
Access the Discussion Page
Week 5 (15 May)
Read/discuss: Chapter 56–75
Access the Discussion Page
Week 6 (22 May)
Digital demo: how to use AntConc for literary texts.
Read/discuss: Chapters 76–95
Access the Discussion Page
Week 7 (29 May)
Digital demo: how to use R to analyse and visualise textual data.
Read/discuss: Chapters 96–115
Week 8 (5 June)
Read/discuss: Chapters 116–Epilogue