The 21st St. Louis Symposium on German Literature at Washington University:
Distant Readings / Descriptive Turns: Topologies of German Culture in the Long Nineteenth Century

Dates: March 29-31, 2012

Location: Friday: Hurst Lounge, Duncker Hall; Saturday: Danforth University Center, Classroom 276

Distant Readings Poster (PDF)

Please check this page for updates the morning of the symposium.

 

Thursday, March 29

Location: Eads Hall

Open House, time: 5:00 p.m.

Humanities Digital Workshop, Eads Hall (basement)

 

 

Friday, March 30

Location: Hurst Lounge, Duncker Hall
(lectures in: Hurst Lounge; breaks in: adjacent room)

9:00 am - 11:00 am
REGISTRATION
Location: Hurst Lounge lobby

9:15 am
Coffee

9:30 am
WELCOME
Gary S. Wihl, Dean of Arts and Sciences (Washington University)

9:45 - 10:30 am
Lutz Koepnick (Washington University, St. Louis)
Can Computers Read?

10:30 am - 12:00 pm - Section I
Moderator: Matt Wilkens (University of Notre Dame)

10:30-11:15 am
Andrew Piper (McGill University)
The Werther Effect: Topologies of German Literature, 1774-1832

11:15 am - 12:00pm
Matt Erlin (Washington University, St. Louis)
The Location of Literary History: Topic Modeling and the German Novel, 1731-1864

12:00 - 1:30 pm
Lunch on your own on campus

1:30 - 3:00 pm - Section II
Moderator: Mark Algee-Hewitt (McGill University)

1:30 - 2:15 pm
Fotis Jannidis (Universität Würzburg)
Mapping the Narrative? A Corpus-Based Study of the German Novel from 1700 to 1900

2:15 - 3:00pm
Gerhard Lauer (Universität Göttingen)
Calculating Literature. First Steps Toward a Computer-Based Analysis of Nineteenth-Century Novels

3:00 - 3:30 pm
Coffee Break

3:30 - 5:45 pm - Section III
Moderator: Alyssa Howards (Wake Forest University)

3:30 - 4:15 pm
Tobias Boes (University of Notre Dame)
The Vocations of the Novel: Distant Reading Occupational Change in Nineteenth-Century German Literature

4:15 - 5:00 pm
Paul Youngman (University of North Carolina, Charlotte)
Black Devil and Iron Angel Revisited: N-Gramming the Railway in 19th Century German Fiction

5:00 - 5:45 pm
Todd Kontje (University of California, San Diego)
The Case for Close Reading after the Descriptive Turn

Saturday, March 31

Location: Danforth University Center
(lectures in: Classroom 276; breaks in: Formal Lounge adjacent to Classroom 276)

9:00 - 10:30 am - Section IV
Moderator: Mike Lützeler (Washington University)

9:00 - 9:45 am
Katja Mellmann (Universität Göttingen)
"Detoured Reading": Understanding Literature through its Contemporary Reception. Case Studies in Nineteenth-Century German Novels

9:45 - 10:30 am
Jonathan Hess (UNC Chapel Hill)
Distant Reading and the Study of Nineteenth-Century German-Jewish Culture

10:30 - 11:00 am
Coffee Break

11:00 am - 12:30 am - Section V
Moderator: Lorie Vanchena (University of Kansas)

11:00 am - 11:45 am
Kirsten Belgum (University of Texas)
Distant Reception: Bringing German Books to America

11:45 am - 12:30 pm
Lynne Tatlock (Washington University, St. Louis)
The One and the Many: The Old Mam'selle's Secret and the American Traffic in German Fiction (1868-1917)

12:30 - 2:00 pm
Lunch on your own on campus

2:00 - 4:15 pm - Section VI
Moderator: Joseph Loewenstein (Washington University)

2:00 - 2:45 pm
Nicolas Pethes (Ruhr-Universität Bochum)
Serial Individuality: Case Study Collections around 1800

2:45 - 3:30 pm
Peter McIsaac (University of Michigan)
Rethinking Non-Fiction: A Digital Humanities Approach to the Nineteenth-Century Science-Literature Divide

3:30 - 4:15 pm
Allen Beye Riddell (Duke University)
How to Read 16,700 Journal Articles: Studying Nineteenth-Century German Studies Using Topic Models

4:15 pm
Kaffee und Kuchen

 

End of the symposium