Are Computational Literary Studies Structuralist?

Abstract

In this contribution we discuss what we call the “digital humanities-as-structuralism” narrative for the case of computational literary studies. To better understand the entailed criticism, we start with some background for the non-computational aspects in this narrative. First, we single out major criticisms against structuralism. We then introduce a general and theory-independent model of literary text analysis and discuss hypothesis development and justification in literary studies. This builds the ground for our analysis of structuralism criticisms in computational literary studies. In our discussion of the “digital humanities-as-structuralism” narrative, we examine the use of computational methods for the exploration and confirmation of interpretation hypotheses and its potential relation to structuralist issues. We argue that the “digital humanities-as-structuralism” narrative may be productive where it cautions against reductionist approaches, but it is not appropriate for describing exploratory or partial approaches and the presentation of their findings. There, the computational approaches should rather be seen as enabling connectivity and fostering the joint endeavor of understanding.