SAH Commons | Ted Underwood | Activity https://sah.hcommons.org/members/tedunderwood/activity/ Activity feed for Ted Underwood. Sat, 04 Apr 2026 12:34:11 -0400 https://buddypress.org/?v=10.6.0 en-US 30 hourly 2 f51d6d6066229d1119346d697c511877 Ted Underwood deposited Culture, Theory, Data: An Introduction in the group Sociology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1849636/ Sat, 17 Jun 2023 02:24:26 -0400 The introduction to a special issue of New Literary History titled “Culture, Theory, Data,” which explores the consequences of computation for cultural theory—and vice-versa.

The introduction begins by explaining how we came to a historical juncture where “culture” and “data” seem to be opposed terms. Then it offers some reasons for believing t…[Read more]

]]> 0 b4d82e1fb1b587707afe996394b4cfc5 Ted Underwood deposited Culture, Theory, Data: An Introduction in the group Digital Humanists https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1849635/ Sat, 17 Jun 2023 02:23:43 -0400 The introduction to a special issue of New Literary History titled “Culture, Theory, Data,” which explores the consequences of computation for cultural theory—and vice-versa.

The introduction begins by explaining how we came to a historical juncture where “culture” and “data” seem to be opposed terms. Then it offers some reasons for believing t…[Read more]

]]> 0 cb4976a35600afaaa902d848be190cc4 Ted Underwood deposited Culture, Theory, Data: An Introduction https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1849574/ Fri, 16 Jun 2023 11:40:45 -0400 The introduction to a special issue of New Literary History titled “Culture, Theory, Data,” which explores the consequences of computation for cultural theory—and vice-versa.

The introduction begins by explaining how we came to a historical juncture where “culture” and “data” seem to be opposed terms. Then it offers some reasons for believing t…[Read more]

]]> 0 5bd43b55edc834edb8b905f57d6fe691 Ted Underwood deposited Mapping the Latent Spaces of Culture in the group TC Digital Humanities https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1756326/ Fri, 22 Oct 2021 02:28:49 -0400 As neural language models begin to change aspects of everyday life, they understandably attract criticism. This position paper was commissioned for a roundtable at Princeton University, dedicated to one of the most influential critiques: “On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?” by Emily M. Bender, Timnit Gebru,…[Read more]

]]> 0 877eb18ce8a1e6a88c09328ee51c40a9 Ted Underwood deposited Mapping the Latent Spaces of Culture in the group Sociology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1756325/ Fri, 22 Oct 2021 02:28:48 -0400 As neural language models begin to change aspects of everyday life, they understandably attract criticism. This position paper was commissioned for a roundtable at Princeton University, dedicated to one of the most influential critiques: “On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?” by Emily M. Bender, Timnit Gebru,…[Read more]

]]> 0 18c8bbab4a06033deb569e2dfcca99ae Ted Underwood deposited Mapping the Latent Spaces of Culture in the group Digital Humanists https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1756324/ Fri, 22 Oct 2021 02:28:09 -0400 As neural language models begin to change aspects of everyday life, they understandably attract criticism. This position paper was commissioned for a roundtable at Princeton University, dedicated to one of the most influential critiques: “On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?” by Emily M. Bender, Timnit Gebru,…[Read more]

]]> 0 b99c65ee1616900226ad69f0f877a336 Ted Underwood deposited Mapping the Latent Spaces of Culture https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1756188/ Thu, 21 Oct 2021 03:55:00 -0400 As neural language models begin to change aspects of everyday life, they understandably attract criticism. This position paper was commissioned for a roundtable at Princeton University, dedicated to one of the most influential critiques: “On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?” by Emily M. Bender, Timnit Gebru,…[Read more]

]]> 0 9642130008d58b8d7eaa554b5f17d457 Ted Underwood deposited Reclaiming Ground for the Humanities in the group Victorian Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1720170/ Thu, 17 Dec 2020 02:28:30 -0500 Projects that bridge the humanities and sciences often attract attention from journalists, but evoke dismay from humanists who feel that their subjects of expertise have been misinterpreted. For the humanities to reclaim a place of pride in public conversation, humanists themselves need to embrace interdisciplinarity and take the lead in this…[Read more]

]]> 0 a5c2a8bb33cd99925fd23c9518a4af43 Ted Underwood deposited Reclaiming Ground for the Humanities in the group TC Digital Humanities https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1720169/ Thu, 17 Dec 2020 02:24:32 -0500 Projects that bridge the humanities and sciences often attract attention from journalists, but evoke dismay from humanists who feel that their subjects of expertise have been misinterpreted. For the humanities to reclaim a place of pride in public conversation, humanists themselves need to embrace interdisciplinarity and take the lead in this…[Read more]

]]> 0 31680d507c96dbbcb0c3d7d5a4cc1ca6 Ted Underwood deposited Reclaiming Ground for the Humanities in the group Digital Humanists https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1720168/ Thu, 17 Dec 2020 02:24:12 -0500 Projects that bridge the humanities and sciences often attract attention from journalists, but evoke dismay from humanists who feel that their subjects of expertise have been misinterpreted. For the humanities to reclaim a place of pride in public conversation, humanists themselves need to embrace interdisciplinarity and take the lead in this…[Read more]

]]> 0 2165b8a1b42eeea59b2546b9be7ed18d Ted Underwood deposited Reclaiming Ground for the Humanities https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1720058/ Wed, 16 Dec 2020 11:06:46 -0500 Projects that bridge the humanities and sciences often attract attention from journalists, but evoke dismay from humanists who feel that their subjects of expertise have been misinterpreted. For the humanities to reclaim a place of pride in public conversation, humanists themselves need to embrace interdisciplinarity and take the lead in this…[Read more]

]]> 0 05e994b644eb653c6b0641f090264eb3 Ted Underwood deposited Book Reviews and the Consolidation of Genre in the group TC Digital Humanities https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1702111/ Thu, 23 Jul 2020 02:33:40 -0400 Some literary scholars have claimed that predictive models can measure the strength of the boundaries that separate different cultural categories—genres, for instance, or market segments. But interpreting textual models as evidence about the strength of a cultural distinction has seemed a questionable move to many readers. We use book reviews to t…[Read more]

]]> 0 05e994b644eb653c6b0641f090264eb3 Ted Underwood deposited Book Reviews and the Consolidation of Genre in the group Sociology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1702110/ Thu, 23 Jul 2020 02:33:40 -0400 Some literary scholars have claimed that predictive models can measure the strength of the boundaries that separate different cultural categories—genres, for instance, or market segments. But interpreting textual models as evidence about the strength of a cultural distinction has seemed a questionable move to many readers. We use book reviews to t…[Read more]

]]> 0 1ec8c41a73b2f5740d7a4cf1e08d3672 Ted Underwood deposited Book Reviews and the Consolidation of Genre in the group Digital Humanists https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1702109/ Thu, 23 Jul 2020 02:33:20 -0400 Some literary scholars have claimed that predictive models can measure the strength of the boundaries that separate different cultural categories—genres, for instance, or market segments. But interpreting textual models as evidence about the strength of a cultural distinction has seemed a questionable move to many readers. We use book reviews to t…[Read more]

]]> 0 1f00b77bca39d7993c5808a429d33901 Ted Underwood's profile was updated https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1701722/ Wed, 22 Jul 2020 12:57:10 -0400 0 06115979447598ad5e4b885e0ccedf4b Ted Underwood deposited Book Reviews and the Consolidation of Genre https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1701528/ Wed, 22 Jul 2020 01:55:33 -0400 Some literary scholars have claimed that predictive models can measure the strength of the boundaries that separate different cultural categories—genres, for instance, or market segments. But interpreting textual models as evidence about the strength of a cultural distinction has seemed a questionable move to many readers. We use book reviews to t…[Read more]

]]> 0 dfefae85cad57150ccdbc54058c6f36d Ted Underwood deposited Machine Learning and Human Perspective in the group TC Digital Humanities https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1678176/ Tue, 11 Feb 2020 16:29:25 -0500 Numbers appear to have limited value for literary study, since our discipline is usually more concerned to explore differences of interpretation than to describe the objective features of literary works. But it may be time to re-examine the assumption that numbers are only useful for objective description. Machine learning algorithms are actually…[Read more]

]]> 0 6614b261b7f861483d518e0a881aa910 Ted Underwood deposited Machine Learning and Human Perspective in the group GS Speculative Fiction https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1678175/ Tue, 11 Feb 2020 16:27:27 -0500 Numbers appear to have limited value for literary study, since our discipline is usually more concerned to explore differences of interpretation than to describe the objective features of literary works. But it may be time to re-examine the assumption that numbers are only useful for objective description. Machine learning algorithms are actually…[Read more]

]]> 0 ce685a5bbd3ae41d1b8768d54c70f988 Ted Underwood deposited Machine Learning and Human Perspective in the group Digital Humanists https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1678174/ Tue, 11 Feb 2020 16:27:12 -0500 Numbers appear to have limited value for literary study, since our discipline is usually more concerned to explore differences of interpretation than to describe the objective features of literary works. But it may be time to re-examine the assumption that numbers are only useful for objective description. Machine learning algorithms are actually…[Read more]

]]> 0 4c079a57c51695b48df10cdd2b190843 Ted Underwood deposited Machine Learning and Human Perspective in the group 2020 MLA Convention https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1678173/ Tue, 11 Feb 2020 16:26:18 -0500 Numbers appear to have limited value for literary study, since our discipline is usually more concerned to explore differences of interpretation than to describe the objective features of literary works. But it may be time to re-examine the assumption that numbers are only useful for objective description. Machine learning algorithms are actually…[Read more]

]]> 0 fca425a9357e87f865f2d0cb67a7fd95 Ted Underwood deposited "Machine Learning and Human Perspective" https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1678147/ Tue, 11 Feb 2020 13:40:31 -0500 Numbers appear to have limited value for literary study, since our discipline is usually more concerned to explore differences of interpretation than to describe the objective features of literary works. But it may be time to re-examine the assumption that numbers are only useful for objective description. Machine learning algorithms are actually…[Read more]

]]> 0 ab7a588cf084e2acc7d3a05265950905 Ted Underwood deposited NovelTM Datasets for English-Language Fiction, 1700-2009 in the group Victorian Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1665490/ Fri, 04 Oct 2019 16:25:44 -0400 This report describes a collection of 210,305 volumes of fiction that researchers are encouraged to borrow for their own work. Alternately, readers can simply browse the report as a description of English-language fiction in HathiTrust Digital Library. For instance, how does the proportion of fiction written by British authors or by women change…[Read more]

]]> 0 ac9357e62023b5ff13cb786714135cd8 Ted Underwood deposited NovelTM Datasets for English-Language Fiction, 1700-2009 in the group Digital Humanists https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1665489/ Fri, 04 Oct 2019 16:25:29 -0400 This report describes a collection of 210,305 volumes of fiction that researchers are encouraged to borrow for their own work. Alternately, readers can simply browse the report as a description of English-language fiction in HathiTrust Digital Library. For instance, how does the proportion of fiction written by British authors or by women change…[Read more]

]]> 0 5430cdcf52440d8d2ca0f5e16322ef4f Ted Underwood deposited NovelTM Datasets for English-Language Fiction, 1700-2009 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1665454/ Fri, 04 Oct 2019 13:01:36 -0400 This report describes a collection of 210,305 volumes of fiction that researchers are encouraged to borrow for their own work. Alternately, readers can simply browse the report as a description of English-language fiction in HathiTrust Digital Library. For instance, how does the proportion of fiction written by British authors or by women change…[Read more]

]]> 0 fd705aa3064fde770debbee42e930cda Ted Underwood deposited Why Literary Time Is Measured in Minutes in the group Victorian Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1610306/ Fri, 08 Jun 2018 04:12:38 -0400 Critics often discuss works of fiction by condensing them into a few resonant scenes. We are so attached to this strategy, in fact, that we sometimes apply it to history itself: New Historicists explicitly theorize the anecdote as an appropriately literary representation of the past. But why should minutes and hours be more literary than months…[Read more]

]]> 0 6b5f3e4de7fcc61dbc979ccf740d7a65 Ted Underwood deposited Why Literary Time Is Measured in Minutes in the group Digital Humanists https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1610305/ Fri, 08 Jun 2018 04:12:28 -0400 Critics often discuss works of fiction by condensing them into a few resonant scenes. We are so attached to this strategy, in fact, that we sometimes apply it to history itself: New Historicists explicitly theorize the anecdote as an appropriately literary representation of the past. But why should minutes and hours be more literary than months…[Read more]

]]> 0 9323c0a0b0a0dca2928abcb5e1bbc4b1 Ted Underwood deposited Why Is Literary Time Measured in Minutes https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1610151/ Wed, 06 Jun 2018 22:05:54 -0400 Critics often discuss works of fiction by condensing them into a few resonant scenes. We are so attached to this strategy, in fact, that we sometimes apply it to history itself: New Historicists explicitly theorize the anecdote as an appropriately literary representation of the past. But why should minutes and hours be more literary than months…[Read more]

]]> 0 42d59785a5490a586edd77f749266c0d Ted Underwood deposited The Transformation of Gender in English-Language Fiction in the group Victorian Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1599610/ Sun, 04 Feb 2018 04:13:06 -0500 Preprint to appear in a special issue of Cultural Analytics on “Identity.” The article explores the paradox that the representation of gender in fiction became more flexible while the sheer balance of attention between fictional men and women was growing more unequal. We measure the rigidity of gendered roles by asking how easy it is to infer…[Read more]

]]> 0 42d59785a5490a586edd77f749266c0d Ted Underwood deposited The Transformation of Gender in English-Language Fiction in the group Sociology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1599609/ Sun, 04 Feb 2018 04:13:06 -0500 Preprint to appear in a special issue of Cultural Analytics on “Identity.” The article explores the paradox that the representation of gender in fiction became more flexible while the sheer balance of attention between fictional men and women was growing more unequal. We measure the rigidity of gendered roles by asking how easy it is to infer…[Read more]

]]> 0 ab5235816fc01bb5bef8511640eb8845 Ted Underwood deposited The Transformation of Gender in English-Language Fiction in the group Linguistics https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1599608/ Sun, 04 Feb 2018 04:12:35 -0500 Preprint to appear in a special issue of Cultural Analytics on “Identity.” The article explores the paradox that the representation of gender in fiction became more flexible while the sheer balance of attention between fictional men and women was growing more unequal. We measure the rigidity of gendered roles by asking how easy it is to infer…[Read more]

]]> 0 5e97f2c44fd05afaf0001e8e9185f839 Ted Underwood deposited The Transformation of Gender in English-Language Fiction in the group Digital Humanists https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1599607/ Sun, 04 Feb 2018 04:12:26 -0500 Preprint to appear in a special issue of Cultural Analytics on “Identity.” The article explores the paradox that the representation of gender in fiction became more flexible while the sheer balance of attention between fictional men and women was growing more unequal. We measure the rigidity of gendered roles by asking how easy it is to infer…[Read more]

]]> 0 68a81ebf60a160c04a5a6076143c544e Ted Underwood deposited The Transformation of Gender in English-Language Fiction https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1599574/ Sat, 03 Feb 2018 20:37:45 -0500 Preprint to appear in a special issue of Cultural Analytics on “Identity.” The article explores the paradox that the representation of gender in fiction became more flexible while the sheer balance of attention between fictional men and women was growing more unequal. We measure the rigidity of gendered roles by asking how easy it is to infer…[Read more]

]]> 0 e153ef2d702bad9de5e1179b127a76a8 Ted Underwood deposited Distant Reading and Recent Intellectual History in the group TM Literary and Cultural Theory https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/547646/ Sun, 08 May 2016 13:00:49 -0400 Literary scholars’ conversations about distant reading have spent too much time pitting it against close reading, and not enough time understanding connections to other disciplines. Distant reading is better understood as part of a methodological shift that has permitted humanists and social scientists to build stronger interdisciplinary connections.

]]> 0 76ea0b610c8de89a28e03134fa847a7f Ted Underwood deposited Distant Reading and Recent Intellectual History in the group TC Digital Humanities https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/547645/ Sun, 08 May 2016 13:00:39 -0400 Literary scholars’ conversations about distant reading have spent too much time pitting it against close reading, and not enough time understanding connections to other disciplines. Distant reading is better understood as part of a methodological shift that has permitted humanists and social scientists to build stronger interdisciplinary connections.

]]> 0 76ea0b610c8de89a28e03134fa847a7f Ted Underwood deposited Distant Reading and Recent Intellectual History https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/547644/ Sun, 08 May 2016 13:00:39 -0400 Literary scholars’ conversations about distant reading have spent too much time pitting it against close reading, and not enough time understanding connections to other disciplines. Distant reading is better understood as part of a methodological shift that has permitted humanists and social scientists to build stronger interdisciplinary connections.

]]> 0 53059cbbd027673c577f293255d10272 Ted Underwood's profile was updated https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/547643/ Sun, 08 May 2016 11:25:44 -0400 0 76b4a78d07326e787bc3f82864237452 Ted Underwood became a registered member https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/547641/ Sun, 08 May 2016 11:15:00 -0400 0