In this course, students will learn how to apply quantitative and computational methods for analyzing text to questions that are of significance to Literary Studies, and the humanities more broadly. Beginning with a series of readings and discussions on the theoretical implications of using quantitative methods for literary analysis, we will move to in-depth instruction in more advanced methods for computational text analysis, including topic models, word embeddings, and large language models. Students will not only become familiar with training and querying these models, but, more importantly, will gain hands-on experience in how to build these analytical techniques into humanities-based research.
5 units · Letter (ABCD/NP) · GER: WAY-AQR, WAY-FR
In this course, students will learn how to apply quantitative and computational methods for analyzing text to questions that are of significance to Literary Studies, and the humanities more broadly. Beginning with a series of readings and discussions on the theoretical implications of using quantitative methods for literary analysis, we will move to in-depth instruction in more advanced methods for computational text analysis, including topic models, word embeddings, and large language models. Students will not only become familiar with training and querying these models, but, more importantly, will gain hands-on experience in how to build these analytical techniques into humanities-based research.
Offered in Spring 2026 at Stanford University.