Introduction:
Viral Texts project analyzes large textual databases of the 19th century newspaper ranging from hard news, popular science, and advice to fiction, poetry, and jokes. The data visualization illustrates publications that share “Viral Texts” and communities that frequently share reprinted texts.
Sources
- Large-scale archives of digitized historical newspapers
- Library of Congress’ Chronicling America newspaper archive
- Making of America magazine archive
Processes
- Computational text analysis tools
- Plagiarism detection
- Gene sequencing
- Machine learning
- Network analysis
Presentation
- Data visualizations
- Interactive exhibits
- Computational and literary publications
Further Inquiry:
Why are some of the links not working?
What are a few interesting reprinted texts?
In-class Discussion:
What is the goal of the project?
The project aims to expand the knowledge of the 19th century reading and writing and aid scholars in their search.
Which academic fields (i.e history) do you see the project in conversation with?
- Literature
- History
