tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post1722441779266962870..comments2024-03-23T00:59:24.057-04:00Comments on Sapping Attention: Literary Dopplegängers and interestingnessBenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04856020368342677253noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post-7205869048403251702016-05-30T18:36:09.418-04:002016-05-30T18:36:09.418-04:00Hmm, interesting. Good points there. In a certain ...Hmm, interesting. Good points there. In a certain sense, you're right, embracing algorithms as algorithms could produce a broader (in the sense of more cross-disciplinary) audience.<br /><br />I don't know if it's either/or. I'm not systematically rededicating myself to disciplinarity -- far from it, in some ways. Ideally, I'd like to do both of these things: pure and applied text mining.<br /><br />My suspicion of DH is related to all this, I guess, but in a complicated way. It's not the cross-disciplinary character of DH that tires me out so much as the lack of a methodological common denominator.Ted Underwoodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04012428899328561750noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post-86352178185095958752016-05-30T17:55:26.627-04:002016-05-30T17:55:26.627-04:00I think before I got all distracted by the novels ...I think before I got all distracted by the novels and gave up actually responding to you, what I meant I really think was:<br /><br />1. If you want to be publishable to a disciplinary audience, you probably do best to avoid geeking over the latest algorithm;<br />2. If you want to be interest to a non-disciplinary audience, you'll often do well to geek out over the latest algorithm, and pursue the questions it makes possible without regard to whether they have been answered satisfyingly with the disciplines.<br /><br />But the point being that "interestingness" is often a disciplinarily defined phenomenon. I think I deleted a sentence as too inside-baseball saying that I thought your frequently-voiced suspicion of "DH" as a useful constellation was related here. If DH were related to English the way bioinformatics is related to biology, then things might look different. But I'm probably not ready to declare war on the disciplines yet. Or at least, not on *my* discipline.<br /><br />Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04856020368342677253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post-41607135142038630102016-05-30T17:09:38.457-04:002016-05-30T17:09:38.457-04:00I suspect I don't really disagree with you. No...I suspect I don't really disagree with you. Notice that I say "writers <em>who want to reach a broad audience</em> need to resist geeking out over the latest algorithm," not "I personally promise to resist geeking out over the latest algorithm."<br /><br />On the contrary, I can pretty much guarantee that I won't resist. Especially not when I'm reading/writing blog posts.<br /><br />And doppelganger-search strikes me as something that has immediately practical applications even for non-distant-readers. It could be a pretty decent way of exploring literary influence.Ted Underwoodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04012428899328561750noreply@blogger.com