Distant Reading for European Literary History (COST Action CA16204)

Institution: Distant Reading for European Literary History – COST Action CA16204 Category: Project
Website: https://www.distant-reading.net/

Short Description

The ELTeC (European Literary Text Collection) service is a multilingual collection of full-text novels from at least ten European languages, developed for computer-assisted analyses in the field of literary studies. Target users are researchers in the humanities, particularly in Digital Humanities. The main benefit for universities lies in providing standardized, annotated text data that enables comparative, data-driven analysis of European literary traditions and supports the development and validation of new methodological approaches.

General Description

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Thematic Classification

Subject Areas

Humanities
Computer Science
Digital Humanities
Literature Studies
Linguistics
Computational Linguistics
Text Encoding
Digitization
Cultural Studies

Research Fields

• Distant Reading
• Computational Literary Studies
• Multilingual Literary Text Analysis
• Digital Humanities
• Text Mining
• Natural Language Processing (NLP)
• Authorship Attribution
• Topic Modeling
• Stylistic Analysis
• Named Entity Recognition (NER)
• Sentiment Analysis
• Text Annotation and Encoding (TEI)
• Linked Open Data (LOD) in Humanities
• Literary Periodization
• Canonization Studies
• Computational Stylistics
• Character Network Analysis
• Language-Independent Text Analysis
• Cross-National Literary Comparison
• Data Curation for Literary Corpora
• Open Science in Humanities
• Computational Historiography

Specializations

• Distant Reading (computational text analysis of large literary text collections)
• Development of a multilingual European literary text collection (ELTeC)
• Creation and use of Linked Open Data (ELTeC-LLOD) for literary texts
• Development and application of methods of computer-assisted stylometry
• Application of Natural Language Processing (NLP) for literary texts (e.g. POS-tagging, lemmatization, Named Entity Recognition)
• Analysis of literary themes and motifs using Topic Modeling
• Investigation of the inner worlds of novel characters (e.g. use of verbs to describe inner states)
• Analysis of title practices and genres in European novels
• Development of Open Science principles and Open-Access resources
• Promotion of inclusion and gender equality of women in digital humanities
• Interdisciplinary collaboration between literary studies, computer science, and linguistics
• Development of standards and best practices for digital literary research
• Integration of Wikidata and other Linked Data sources into literary research
• Analysis of the development of sentence length in the 19th century
• Quantitative content analysis of literary texts (e.g. in Slovenian prose)

Keywords

• Distant Reading - European Literary Text Collection - ELTeC - Multilingual Literary Corpus - Computational Literary Analysis - Digital Humanities - Text Mining - Literary History - Authorship Attribution - Topic Modeling

Funding

Funding Provider: -
Funding Program: COST Action CA16204
Funding Reference: CA16204
Funding Period: 2017-2023
Project Volume: 1.5 Mio. Euro

Team & Partners

Project Leadership

Prof. Dr. Christof Schöch (University of Trier)

Involved Persons

• Dr. Ranka Stanković (Team member, Working Group 1)
• Dr. Cvetana Krstev (Team member, Working Group 1)
• Dr. Duško Vitas (Team member, Working Group 1)
• Dr. Mihailo Škorić (Team member, Working Group 1)
• Dr. Milica Ikonić Nešić (Team member, Working Group 1)
• Dr. Olivera Kitanović (Team member, Working Group 1)
• Dr. Miloš Utvić (Team member, Working Group 1)
• Dr. Tomaž Erjavec (Team member, Working Group 3)
• Dr. Roxana Patras (Team member, Working Group 3)
• Dr. Diana Santos (Team member, Working Group 3)
• Dr. Gábor Palkó (Team member, Working Group 2)
• Dr. Agnes Hilger (Team member, Working Group 2)
• Dr. Fotis Jannidis (Team member, Working Group 2)
• Dr. Pieter Francois (Team member, Working Group 2)
• Dr. Lou Burnard (Team member, Working Group 2)
• Dr. Joanna Byszuk (Team member, Working Group 2)
• Dr. Maciej Eder (Team member, Working Group 2)

Affiliated Institutions

-

External Partners

INSUFFICIENT

Project Contents

Goals

• Establishment of a multilingual European literary text collection (ELTeC) with approximately 2,500 full-text novels in at least 10 languages
• Development and standardization of innovative computer-assisted methods for Distant Reading across several European literary traditions
• Theoretical and methodological re-evaluation of fundamental concepts of literary history and literary theory in the context of data-based research
• Promotion of competence development, particularly among early-career researchers, in methods of Distant Reading and data curation
• Support for inclusion and equality, particularly through targeted measures to promote the participation of women in digital humanities

Work Packages

• WP1: European Literary Text Collection (ELTeC) – Creation and maintenance of a multilingual collection of novels in at least 10 European languages
• WP2: Development and application of innovative methods of Distant Reading for European literary traditions
• WP3: Theoretical and methodological investigation of the consequences of Distant Reading for literary history and literary theory
• WP4: Capacity building and support for Early Career Investigators (ECIs) in Distant Reading methods
• WP5: Support with submitting funding applications at national and European levels
• WP6: Promotion of gender equality and improvement of women's participation in research

Methods

• Distant Reading
• Computational methods of analysis
• Authorship attribution
• Topic modelling
• Character network analysis
• Stylistic analysis
• Computational stylistics
• Network analysis
• Benchmarking
• Language-dependent performance evaluation
• Literary periodization
• Canonization
• Theoretical assumptions and foundations of Distant Reading research
• Data curation
• Standards
• Best practices
• Textometric methods
• Named Entity Recognition (NER)
• Geo-Tagging
• Sentiment Analysis
• Parallel stylometric document embeddings
• Deep learning based language models
• LDA topic modeling
• Lemmatization
• POS-tagging
• Morphosyntactic analysis
• Direct speech detection
• Quantitative content analysis
• Dispersion-based measures of distinctiveness
• Machine learning approaches
• Sequence modeling
• Transformer architecture
• Multilingual sentence embedder
• Finite-state methodology
• Manual cleaning
• Encoding
• Annotation
• Format conversion
• Data management tools
• AntConc
• TXM
• StyloR
• Nooj
• Heurist
• Transkribus
• Oxygen
• OCR (Optical Character Recognition)
• TEI (Text Encoding Initiative)
• NLP Interchange Format (NIF)
• Linked Data
• SPARQL queries
• Wikification
• OpenRefine
• QuickStatements
• NLP (Natural Language Processing)
• Computational linguistics
• Digital humanities
• Close reading
• Big Data analysis
• Algorithm

Expected Outcomes

• Creation of a multilingual European literary text collection (ELTeC) with approximately 2,500 full-text novels in at least 10 European languages
• Development and standardization of innovative computer-assisted methods for literary text analysis across multiple European literary traditions
• Establishment of shared theoretical and practical frameworks for Distant Reading research
• Promotion of the acquisition of state-of-the-art Distant Reading methods, particularly through Early Career Investigators (ECIs)
• Support for the preparation and submission of competitive funding proposals at national and European levels
• Improvement of gender balance in research through targeted measures to promote women's participation
• Creation of an open, sustainable, and accessible research infrastructure ecosystem for European literary history
• Increased visibility and relevance of European literary history through data-driven, multilingual, and interdisciplinary research
• Development of standards, best practices, and tools for Distant Reading research
• Promotion of collaboration and exchange among researchers from different countries and disciplines
• Enhanced transparency and reproducibility of research results through Open Science principles
• Creation of a

Contact

Contact Person: Christof Schöch
Email: -
Project Website: https://www.distant-reading.net/

Recorded: 2026-01-14
Source: https://www.distant-reading.net/