My plan for this project is to track associations of parts of nameless novel. First, I will run part of a nameless novel through Wordle (PS the parts being used appear in a magazine). Then, I will take the most popular words from this part of the work. Then, I will find a passage in that part of the work (or maybe another part, we shall see) that does not have those most popular words. I will then take that part that does not have those words, tag them with my associations in an Excel file. Then, I want to poll a group of graduate students and undergraduate students with the selection who have not read the selection before and see what their associations are. Then, I will see if those who have not read the entire passage pick up on the words that are most frequent in the overall passage but not there in the passage they read. Then, I will map my associations, their associations, and the content of the magazines onto a Gephi graph. I will then discuss what kind of things may shape those associations for those reading the magazine and those in the modern group.
The archival nature of this project lies in the maintenance of people's associations or the way that they categorize this reading in their mind. I will also kind of be tracking any changes that happened in the work (if they do at all) through Juxta. It could also be interesting to see if people make associations with words that are associated with words that appear in the text, like honest instead of true or something.
No pics or whatever yet.
Comments
Jeff Drouin
Wed, 03/28/2012 - 18:38
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The second part about Juxta
The second part about Juxta seems more feasible as a later addition to the project. You've got more than enough to do in terms of acquiring an electronic text of this suspicious and surreptitious n_vel that must not be named and organizing the commentary by so many students. I would just focus on that.
If you're going to use a serialized version instead, check the archives and back issues of the magazine to see if it's been digitized by the publication or by a third party. Depending on the year, it might be availalbe through Google Books if it's in the public domain.
At any rate, I'd appreciate it if you'd email me privately to discuss the logistics of this project, since some of the IP issues are going to have to be dealt with.