Beyond Two Cultures: Computational Literary Studies As Digital Scholarly Editing

Abstract

Computational Literary Studies is rarely brought into conversation with digital scholarly editing, despite their common involvement with digital literary texts, cultures, and infrastructures. This separation is one of a number that this collection bridges as it broadens the scope and deepens the connections of digital scholarly editing with old friends (including bibliography, book history, and literary studies) and new ones (including studies of archives, media, and infrastructures). In the spirit of furthering this valuable building work, I want to suggest an alternative model for the relationship between digital scholarly editing and CLS to the one offered by Fotis Jannidis in this collection. His account of contrasting error cultures requires that we understand both fields as referring to pre-existing objects of analysis, whereas many of the contributions to this collection foreground the ontological and ethico-political implications of knowing in digital scholarly editing. Reflecting briefly on the way my own work combining CLS with digital scholarly editing over the past decade and a half has shifted to embrace this performative logic, I suggest how Jannidis is doing the same thing, notwithstanding his foregrounding of error. Recognising this commonality offers an alternative basis for collaboration, more suited to engaging with emerging textual assemblages and the challenges these present to established textual practices and politics. Show more