In this hands-on workshop, STLI Faculty Fellow for Excellence in Teaching Paul Vierthaler discussed the processes and affordances of distant reading, sometimes considered the opposite of close reading. Instead of carefully reading and analyzing a single work (or a group of works), distant reading takes thousands of pieces of literature and feeds them into a computer for analysis. Prof. Vierthaler showcased Voyant Tools, one of the most popular and useful applications for distant reading in the Digital Humanities.

Close Reading vs. Distant Reading Texts: What we can we learn from expanding our gaze?

In this hands-on workshop, STLI Faculty Fellow for Excellence in Teaching Paul Vierthaler discussed the processes and affordances of distant reading, sometimes considered the opposite of close reading. Instead of carefully reading and analyzing a single work (or a group of works), distant reading takes thousands of pieces of literature and feeds them into a computer for analysis. Prof. Vierthaler showcased Voyant Tools, one of the most popular and useful applications for distant reading in the Digital Humanities.