Seminars & Events

Computation Institute 3-D Program
"Mining and Meaning: Eighteenth-Century Metaphors of the Mind"

DATE: October 23, 2007
TIME: 3:30 pm
SPEAKER: Brad Pasanek, Pomona College
LOCATION: Rosenwald 405, University of Chicago
HOST: Arno Bosse

Description:
In my talk I discuss the mining of metaphors with computer technology, mining as a metaphor for the mind in the eighteenth century, and the ways in which material culture shapes the meaning of metaphor. My paper explores the interpretive payoffs promised to the literary critic who works collaboratively with computer scientists and applies techniques from data-mining and machine learning to large online collections of literature. While my approach is enabled by working with electronic texts, my research remains continuous with traditional literary scholarship: mine is close empirical work with metaphors informed by theoretical discussions of semantic change. The project is further characterized by efforts to bring the language of non-canonical writers to attention and to describe the material culture that impacts figuration. The raw data underlying this project is available online in a browseable database. Some of the more provoking and extraordinary specimens from the database are explored in a blog-like format at mind.textdriven.com.

Brad Pasanek currently works as a visiting Assistant Professor in the English Department of Pomona College, where he teaches courses on metaphor, fiction, and the concept of person; women and the rise of the novel; pre/post-modern rewritings of eighteenth-century fiction; and Romantic poetry. Last year he was a postdoctoral fellow at USC's Annenberg Center for Communication. Pasanek received his B.A. from the University of Chicago in 1997 and completed a Ph.D. at Stanford University in 2006.

More Information:
Refreshments will be served.

Humanities Computing and CI sponsored event.
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