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Full-Text Articles in Literature in English, North America

Symbols Purely Mechanical: Language, Modernity, And The Rise Of The Algorithm, 1605–1862, Jeffrey M. Binder May 2018

Symbols Purely Mechanical: Language, Modernity, And The Rise Of The Algorithm, 1605–1862, Jeffrey M. Binder

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In recent decades, scholars in both Digital Humanities and Critical Media Studies have encountered a disconnect between algorithms and what are typically thought of as “cultural” concerns. In Digital Humanities, researchers employing algorithmic methods in the study of literature have faced what Alan Liu has called a “meaning problem”—a difficulty in reconciling computational results with traditional forms of interpretation. Conversely, in Critical Media Studies, some thinkers have questioned the adequacy of interpretive methods as means of understanding computational systems. This dissertation offers a historical account of how this disconnect came into being by examining the attitudes toward algorithms that existed …


Tragedy And Theodicy: The Role Of The Sufferer From Job To Ahab, Nora Carroll Feb 2018

Tragedy And Theodicy: The Role Of The Sufferer From Job To Ahab, Nora Carroll

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The character of Job starts in literature, a trope and archetype of the suffering man who potentially gains wisdom through suffering. Job’s characterization informs a comparison to Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, Shakespeare’s King Lear, Milton’s Paradise Lost, and finally Melville’s Moby-Dick. These versions of Job rally, fight, and rebel against a universe that was once loving and fair towards a more chaotic and nihilistic one. Job’s suffering is on the mark of all tragedy because he not only experiences a downfall, he gains wisdom through universalizing his torment. The Job trope not only stresses the role of suffering, it …