Distant Reading in R. Analyse the text & visualize the data
Instructors:
Simone Rebora,Giovanni Pietro Vitali
Duration: both weeks
Distant reading is one of the most well-known methodological approaches in digital humanities, formalized by Franco Moretti in the article Conjectures on World Literature (2000). It benefits greatly from computational tools. For this reason, we are proposing a course based on the use of R, one of the most popular programming languages in the scientific community today. The philosophy of the course is to analyze text and visualize data, and its structure follows this dichotomy. The objective is to introduce participants to different methodological perspectives and provide practical tools they can use in their own research. The course offers a compact introduction to natural language processing, computational text analysis, machine learning, graph theory, and geospatial humanities. By the end of the two-week course, participants will be able to use R and RStudio to apply textual and spatial analysis. An important component of the course is data visualization, an area in which R excels, offering a comprehensive framework for creating graphs, maps, and trees. The final part of the course will focus on open-source programs like Gephi, GIMP, and Inkscape, which allow users to manipulate and rework vector and graphical files. The course is suitable for beginners who want to start their digital humanities training with a complete overview of the most common tools used for distant reading.