In the beginning there was... text!

Image: Harko Verhagen, using Dall-e.

Text is central to academic research as it is how we mainly communicate our work. In much of the research in the human sciences, text is and has been central as well. Recent developments in tools for digitizing and analyzing texts, such as Transkribus, and the increasingly digital production of text open up for computational analysis to complement close reading as a method of analysis.

This seminar will illustrate different approaches to text analysis as a method, but also the challenges in using the tools and the abundance of texts produced on social media.

Register here

About the speakers

Katarina Fast. Photo: Rickard Kilström.

Katarina Fast is an associate professor at the Department of Law. Her topic at the seminar is “What are the legal and ethical challenges in the use (and abuse) of public available texts, more in particular the use of social media texts in research?”

Beata Megyesi. Photo: Mikael Wallerstedt.

Beata Megyesi is a professor at the Department of Linguistics. At the seminar, she will discuss “The Future of the Past: The Intersection of Text Analysis, Historical Ciphers, and the Usability of AI in the Humanities”.

Andrea Voyer. Photo: Leila Zoubir.

Andrea Voyer is an associate professor at the Department of Sociology. Her topic is “New Methods for Old Sociological Questions: Computational Analyses with Normative Text Corpora”. She will talk about the use of computational analysis of texts about everyday social norms providing new ways to consider core questions in the social sciences such as immigrant integrations, class distinction-making, and the gender boundaries.

Questions? Send an e-mail to dhv@su.se

This seminar is organised by the DHV-hub, working with Digital Human Sciences at Stockholm University. DHV-hub is one of 12 nodes in the Swedish national infrastructure called Huminfra.