Els Stronks, literary historian and NIAS Fellow 2014/15, has held the 33rd Uhlenbeck Lecture at NIAS's annual alumni event. In "Invisible Ink - Uncovering Meaning from Texts with Digital Tools", she elaborates on the silent revolution that takes place in Literary Studies as a result of digitalisation.
Stronks: “In Literary Studies, a silent revolution is taking place. We were once scientists who focussed our attention on a single letter difference. Now we are exploring vast digital corpora using digital means. In this contexts, you are looking for large patterns and are no longer required to pay attention to a single letter.”
“The digital turn gives us new tools to re-inspect the sources in which we mainly work, texts, looking for new insights. I would like to share some of these insights, related to the creation of ideas about the specific characteristics of youth.”
The 33rd Uhlenbeck Lecture was held at NFA Day 2015.