OSL Workshop: Generalizations, Hypotheses, Evidence in Literary Studies
Online workshop | Friday 23 October 2020, 16:00-17:30 (CEST time) | Organizer: Roel Smeets (Radboud University) | Keynote: Prof. Andrew Piper (McGill University) | 1-2 EC | Open to: PhD, RMA students and staff members.
RMa students who are interested in taking this workshop can send an e-mail with their motivation to osl@rug.nl. Don’t forget to specify your master program, university and national research school.
THE WORKSHOP IS FULLY BOOKED, please send an e-mail with your name, university and research school to osl@rug.nl. We will put you on our waiting list.
How do we move from particular examples to more general statements about the literary world? This is what I will be calling the practice of generalization, and it effects all knowledge domains. While other fields have long grappled with this problem, literary studies has yet to engage in sustained discussion surrounding the principles and procedures through which we produce generalized knowledge about the world. The rise of computational and quantitative forms of evidence have made this issue particularly relevant today, especially for a field that has traditionally relied on anecdotal or exemplary forms of evidence. This workshop will initiate a discussion about the place of generalization within literary studies, problems attending its current practice, issues introduced by data and quantification, and possible future pathways surrounding more open forms of evidence and argumentation.