📊 Projekt

Distant Reading for European Literary History (COST Action CA16204)

Distant Reading for European Literary History – COST Action CA16204

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 service provides access to the European Literary Text Collection (ELTeC), a multilingual collection of 2,500 full-text novels from at least ten European languages. The target audience consists of researchers in the humanities, particularly in literary studies and Digital Humanities. Universities benefit from access to standardized, annotated texts and methodological resources for data-driven literary analyses. The service supports the development of research competencies and the conduct of international, multilingual studies.

General Description

Thematic Classification

Subject Areas

Humanities
Computer Science
Digital Humanities
Literary Studies
Linguistics
Computational Linguistics
Text Encoding
Digitization
Literary History
Stylometry
Distant Reading
Cultural Studies
Historical Linguistics
Text Analysis
Machine Learning
Natural Language Processing (NLP)
Linked Data
Open Science
Scientific Data Processing

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 Literary Studies
Literary Periodization
Canonization Studies
Computational Stylistics
Character Network Analysis
Data Curation for Literary Corpora
Cross-national Literary History
Language-Dependent Performance Evaluation of Distant Reading Methods

Specializations

Distant Reading (computational text analysis of large text collections)
Multilingual European Literary Text Database (ELTeC – European Literary Text Collection)
Development of standards and methods for computer-aided literary analysis
Interdisciplinary research collaboration (Digital Humanities, Literary Studies, Computer Science)
Open Science and Open Access (dissemination of data, tools, and publications)
Theoretical and methodological reflection on Distant Reading and its implications for literary history
Data preprocessing and annotation (e.g., TEI, NLP, Named Entity Recognition)
Linking text data with Linked Open Data (e.g., Wikidata, ELTeC-LLOD)
Promotion of research competencies, particularly among Early Career Researchers
Gender and inclusion strategies in digital humanities
International collaboration and network building (COST Action structure)

Keywords

Distant Reading - European Literary Text Collection (ELTeC) - Multilingual Literary Corpus - Computational Literary Analysis - Digital Humanities - Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) - Linked Open Data (LOD) - Authorship Attribution - Topic Modeling - Stylistic Analysis

Funding

Funding Provider: -
Funding Program: COST Action CA16204
Funding Reference: CA16204
Funding Period: 2017-2021
Project Volume: INSUFFICIENT

Team & Partners

Project Leadership

Prof. Dr. Christof Schöch (Universität Trier)

Involved Persons

Ranka Stanković (Working Group 1 Lead)
Cvetana Krstev (Working Group 1 Member)
Duško Vitas (Working Group 1 Member)
Mihailo Škorić (Working Group 1 Member)
Milica Ikonić Nešić (Working Group 1 Member)
Branislava Šandrih Todorović (Working Group 1 Member)
Olivera Kitanović (Working Group 1 Member)
Miloš Utvić (Working Group 1 Member)
Tijana Radoviš (Working Group 1 Member)
Petar Popović (Working Group 1 Member)
Aleksandra Trtovac (Working Group 1 Member)
Vasilije Milnović (Working Group 1 Member)
Jelena Jaćimović (Working Group 1 Member)
Biljana Rujević (Working Group 1 Member)
Vedad Mulavdić (Working Group 1 Member)
Meliha Handžić (Working Group 1 Member)
Joanna Byszuk (Working Group 2 Member)
Maciej Eder (Working Group 2 Member)
Mike Kestemont (Working Group 2 Member)
Albert Leśniak (Working Group 2 Member)
Wojciech Łukasik (Working Group 2 Member)
Artjoms Šeļa (Working Group 2 Member)
Michał Woźniak (Working Group 2 Member)
Christian Chiarcos (Working Group 2 Member)
Gábor Palkó (Working Group 2 Member)

Affiliated Institutions

External Partners

Keine externen Partner genannt

Project Contents

Goals

Creation of a multilingual European literary text collection (ELTeC) with approximately 2,500 complete 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 examination of the implications of Distant-Reading approaches for literary history and literary theory
Promotion of competence development, particularly among early-career researchers, in Distant Reading methods and data management
Support for inclusion and equality, particularly through targeted measures to promote the participation of women in research

Work Packages

WP1: European Literary Text Collection (ELTeC) – Creation and maintenance of a multilingual collection of novels
WP2: Development and application of innovative methods of Distant Reading for European literary traditions
WP3: Theoretical and methodological investigations into the consequences of Distant Reading for literary history and literary theory
WP4: Dissemination and management strategy as well as coordination of the project's activities

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
Best practices
Open Science
Multilingual corpus creation
Text preparation
Structural annotation
POS-tagging
Lemmatization
Named entity recognition
Named entity linking
Wikification
Linked Data (LLOD)
NLP Interchange Format (NIF)
SPARQL queries
Parallel stylometric document embeddings
Deep learning based language models
Stylometry
Bilingual setup
LDA topic modeling
Lemmatization
Standard LDA algorithm
LF-LDA algorithm
Sentiment analysis
Finite-state methodology
Textometric methods
TXM platform
Direct speech detection
Transformer architecture
Multilingual sentence embedder
Quantitative content analysis
Distinctiveness measures
Dispersion-based measures
Classification of literary texts
OCR (Optical Character Recognition)
TEI (Text Encoding Initiative)
Data science
Digital humanities
Close reading
Computational linguistics
Corpus analysis
Visual

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 common 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 a broader, more inclusive, and better substantiated representation of European literary history and cultural identity
Promotion of collaboration between research institutions and the networking of expertise
Increased visibility of all project participants, activities, and resources
Development of standards, best practices, and tools for Distant Reading research
Support for the digital accessibility of library collections for future research

Contact

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

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

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