Computational tools offer new ways to study art and literature, but how can we use them without losing the formalist and materialist orientations of humanistic inquiry?
Standard computational and scientific techniques were not designed to capture the aesthetic dimensions of literary works and cultural objects. Rather than reframing these limitations as affordances—as Digital Humanities often does—the gambit of this project is to reimagine the tools themselves, transforming how we display and interact with cultural data.
The interactive visualizations on this site repurpose the digital tools to engage with the materials and forces of aesthetic expressions. The goal is not better metrics but alternative ways of seeing—rendering visible the virtual forces that shape the literary and creative industries, uncovering patterns and connections that traditional methods might overlook.
This research began as part of my doctoral dissertation on U.S. poetry movements, supported by the Mellon Foundation through a doctoral fellowship at the University of Cincinnati Libraries’ Digital Scholarship Center. I’m grateful to many people at the University of Cincinnati who supported this research, especially Prof. James Lee, who led the conception, execution, and publication of this research.
— Ankit Basnet