A DH Spectrum of Tool-ness

Though, at this point, Tom Scheinfeldt’s post “Sunset forIdeology, Sunrise for Methodology” is quite dated, I want to focus on it in this post because the questions he raises, and the strict dichotomy he constructs, gets at the heart of some of the issues I’ve been mulling over the past couple weeks.  A few weeks ago, I made a comment on Jordan’s blog with regards to breaking down the dichotomy between close and distant reading—suggesting, perhaps, the ability to use digital tools for closer readings, though not necessarily “close” readings in the traditional sense of the term.  Especially in light of what turned out to be quite a debate over “show-and-tell” versus “construct an argument” last week, I’ve been thinking about the way in which we seem to gravitate toward strict opposing poles when discussing DH. DH becomes a question of close versus distance reading, essay writing versus non-traditional representations, or, in the case of Scheinfeldt’s post, ideology versus methodology.  I think it’s important to break down these binaries in order to explore the ways that we can use DH on an evolving spectrum of close and distant reading while also exploring its potential as an ideology and a methodology on a spectrum as well.

At one point in his post, Scheinfeldt claims that “we are entering a new phase of scholarship that will be dominated not by ideas, but once again by organizing activities, both in terms of organizing knowledge and organizing ourselves and our work.”  This seems to imply that this shift toward organizing activities effaces the focus on ideas, as opposed to working in conjunction with it.  In the comments, both Gavin and Rob call him out on his construction of a false dichotomy and I whole heartedly agree. I think it’s incredibly important to see the ways that new methodologies can grant insight to evolving ideologies.  Tools do not elide ideas—when has that ever been the case? Tools help one in their development of ideas.  In his response to comments, Scheinfeldt seems to grant this as well, writing, “I agree that our current shift towards thinking about new methods will in turn only raise new theoretical questions and ideological debates. And so it goes.”

In trying to understand DH’s place with regards to ideology and methodology, I keep coming back to classifying it as a tool that can assist one in making an argument. Thinking about it in this way, though, places it pretty firmly on the “methodology” side of the spectrum.  Ramsey and Rockwell attempt to answer some of these questions in their contribution to Debates in the Digital Humanities.  As they ask if DH things can be theories, they work their way through the different DH things and how we can classify each.  In their explanations, though, they keep coming back to the classification of DH as a tool, and trying to answer if that tool can be a theory. In reference to DH artifacts, they write, “Where there is an argument, the artifact has ceased to be a tool and has become something else” (78).  They propose, instead, that the way to think of artifact as theories would be to think of them as “hermeneutical instruments through which we can interpret other phenomena” (79). This still sounds like a tool to me. In their section on the digital as a theoretical model they come back to the classification of the digital as a methodology, in much the same way that writing is a methodology (82). Again, this sounds like a tool to me.  In my understanding, this seems like they’re trying to find different ways equate the two poles with each other in what appears to be a futile task.  Rather than this take, I think it would be productive to analyze DH on a spectrum of “tool-ness,” depending on the DH technique you’re discussing. Sometimes it will be more of a tool, sometimes it will be more of a theory, sometimes it will grant greater insight to a theory, sometimes it will not.  Instead of trying to classify it by these hard lines of categorization, we need to use, evaluate, teach, and experience DH on an evolving spectrum, one that can grant useful insight for one’s project and one that can, in some cases, serve as the insightful project in its own right.

More on Moretti: Distance and Mapping

I found this week’s reading on maps fascinating yet perplexing.  The excited English nerd in me who loves to make character maps while reading complex novels was completely on board: “Maps are a great idea! They can add something to our ‘knowledge of literature,’ as Moretti says!” (35). As I reflected more, though, I became perplexed and began asking, what happens to the space that is not mappable? He elusively mentions how Christmas stories cannot be mapped (?) without offering an explanation as to why.  I began to think of other instances in which space is not mappable. Space is never just a location, space is forever bound with time and consciousness (I’m sure there’s a relevant Bergson quote to throw in here…).  So how does one begin to map out a complex novel like, say, Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!?  

When one attempts to map out a storyworld, a world that encompasses so much more than just geographical location, it can never be as simple as placing points on a map.   Moretti makes evident the fact that there are “maps and maps” (meaning maps of real geographical locations and maps of fictional worlds) (63).  Though this is true, he does not seem to take into account the complex spaces of those storyworlds, ones that exist at the juncture of the narrative (or, in Faulkner’s case, the multiple narratives) and the experience of the reader.  There are constructed and forever shifting spaces, unable to be tied down and in a constant process of re-definition through the act of reading.  In my edition of Absalom, Absalom!, a map is included in the introductory material.  This map does in fact recreate the geographical layout of the storyworld, complete with points indicating the location of key plot developments.  This map seems almost facetious and mocking though, as if it mocks our belief that the world of Absalom, Absalom! (a storyworld which extends beyond A,A! to encompass The Sound and the Fury) could be represented on a map.  There are quite a few symbolic spaces that cannot be represented on that map, though, spaces such as Sutpen’s Hundred, a space to which characters return time and again and a space that is always changing, seeking definition.  I think it would be fascinating to attempt to map out the symbolic layers of this space and the storyworld in general—plotting all of the different variations on the spaces, overlaying them on top of one another (I’m sure there has GOT to be a more technical and fancy way to do this than the clear overhead projection sheets I’m envisioning).  

To me though, this task is very tightly wed to close reading. It’s simply, as Moretti defines his own maps, a complex “stylization of space” (42).  This brings me back to the point I made in my previous blog post in which I pointed out that, in his early work, Moretti is hardly conducting any sort of distant reading.  What remains perplexing then, is how his methods are taken up (by other scholars as well as contemporary-Moretti) in current DH distant reading approaches.  What Moretti does in the Maps section of Graphs, Maps, Trees seems worlds apart from what Matthew Wilkens does in “Canons, Close Reading, and the Evolution of Method” in which he plots the geographical locations mentioned in 40ish novels of 1851, 1852, and 1874. Wilken’s task seems so surface level (as it’s intended to be).  Yes, this might lead to a “revised understanding of American regionalism” (253), but I feel like this is doing a vast disservice to the texts.  Perhaps it is elucidating something about the canon (though, we would have to extend Wilkens’ sample size) but I believe it’s getting us so far away from what Moretti was doing when he was looking for interesting narrative patterns.  I guess the real question becomes, when we attempt to expand the canon and pay credence to previously unread texts, is distant reading really the way to do that? I believe if we use maps in the way Wilkens does we relegate those texts to the level of data, one-dimensional plotted points.  If we use maps on those texts in the way Moretti did originally, then we will learn interesting things about texts, but a much smaller number of texts.  How much service does it really do, though, to relegate texts to the sad one-dimensional space that has been derived from number crunching?  The English nerd in me ways to make that Faulkner map (or do that map to another multi-layered text), but at what point does that stop being a valuable task?