Scope and objective

This series of workshops give an overview of digital text analysis tools and methods in the humanities. At the end of each session participants will be familiar with key concepts and methods in quantitative text analysis and will be able to implement and test them in a project or with a compiled dataset.

The workshop sessions:


  • will focus on methods, not just tools. We will survey and test several tools but our approach will be a methodological one critically examining both the benefits and challenges in using certain tools.

  • do not assume or require any prior experience in coding or computational text analysis. Although we will mention command-line tools and programming languages that offer advanced text analysis capabilities we will focus on tools and methods that are more accessible and do not require a steep learning curve. Additional resources and materials will be provided for participants interested in digging deeper into text analysis with programming languages (Python, R).

  • will cover and try to reflect the realities of projects that are collaborative, often cross-disciplinary and/or multilingual with emphasis on sustainability with limited resources. Far from working on an “ideal” project (in terms of time, resources, and funding available) scholars and educators quite often work with students and collaborators on projects that feature a diversity of sources, materials, or languages, require mixed methodological approaches and need considerable support and maintenance once published.