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77511-01 - Seminar: The Digital and the Literary (3 CP)
| Semester | fall semester 2025 |
| Course frequency | Irregular |
| Lecturers | |
| Content | What does it mean when people say we live in a “digital” era? What is “the digital,” and should we define it against something “analog” or something different altogether? Today, there’s a lot of anxiety and fatigue around what was once optimistically called a “digital revolution.” Part of this comes from the impression that we have shattered the “self” into a million pieces of data. The classical self that emerged from the Enlightenment and the early novel seems to have transformed into minute data points, where a certain type of knowledge has been earned at the cost of feeling incomplete and alienated to ourselves. In this course, the rise of “the digital,” writ large, redirects our attention to the history of the novel, a form that many critics deem fundamental to the creation of the modern self. How did novels create a feeling of wholeness? Were novels some sort of original model of simulation, but a simulation at a warmer, more familiar scale? Or did novels anticipate the “data self,” with its creepy surveillance in the creative uses of point of view, self-conscious stylization, and the relentless description of qualities and behaviors? What separates novels from systems of digital computation, and what questions can we ask when comparing the two as smaller provinces within a larger system of writing? What was the old literary model for writing the self, and how does it inform the digital today? This course uses the history of the novel as a case point to compare “genres of computation” with the historical formation and dissolution of models of selfhood. |
| Learning objectives | This course aims to cultivate a critical imagination about the relationship between digital technology and the formation of the self, using the novel as a historical and conceptual anchor. You will learn how to think about computation not only as a technical process but as a larger cultural and philosophical one, and we will build up a more capacious image of writing and media grounded in our use of different methods of reading. We will also treat computation as a cultural logic and as a condition for interpretation, one that can be compared to other forms of writing in literary history and what they afforded for modeling, simulation, and narration. Students will engage with theories of the digital and the self, considering how literary fiction and computation have functioned across time. |
| Bibliography | All assigned readings will be made available during the course. |
| Admission requirements | The number of available places is limited, and students of digital humanities will be given priority to this course. |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Use of digital media | No specific media used |
| Interval | Weekday | Time | Room |
|---|---|---|---|
| wöchentlich | Tuesday | 14.15-16.00 | Kollegienhaus, Seminarraum 210 |
Dates
| Date | Time | Room |
|---|---|---|
| Tuesday 23.09.2025 | 14.15-16.00 | Kollegienhaus, Seminarraum 210 |
| Tuesday 30.09.2025 | 14.15-16.00 | Kollegienhaus, Seminarraum 210 |
| Tuesday 07.10.2025 | 14.15-16.00 | Kollegienhaus, Seminarraum 210 |
| Tuesday 14.10.2025 | 14.15-16.00 | Kollegienhaus, Seminarraum 210 |
| Tuesday 21.10.2025 | 14.15-16.00 | Kollegienhaus, Seminarraum 210 |
| Tuesday 28.10.2025 | 14.15-16.00 | Kollegienhaus, Seminarraum 210 |
| Tuesday 04.11.2025 | 14.15-16.00 | Kollegienhaus, Seminarraum 210 |
| Tuesday 11.11.2025 | 14.15-16.00 | Kollegienhaus, Seminarraum 210 |
| Tuesday 18.11.2025 | 14.15-16.00 | Kollegienhaus, Seminarraum 210 |
| Tuesday 25.11.2025 | 14.15-16.00 | Kollegienhaus, Seminarraum 210 |
| Tuesday 02.12.2025 | 14.15-16.00 | Kollegienhaus, Seminarraum 210 |
| Tuesday 09.12.2025 | 14.15-16.00 | Kollegienhaus, Seminarraum 210 |
| Tuesday 16.12.2025 | 14.15-16.00 | Kollegienhaus, Seminarraum 210 |
| Modules |
Electives Bachelor History: Recommendations (Bachelor's degree subject: History) European History in Global Perspective (Master's Studies - Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences) Modul: Digital Humanities, Culture and Society (Master's degree subject: Digital Humanities) Modul: Forschung und Praxis (Master's degree subject: Osteuropäische Geschichte) Modul: Interphilologie: Literaturwissenschaft MA (Master's degree subject: Slavic Studies) Modul: Interphilologie: Literaturwissenschaft MA (Master's degree subject: English) Modul: Interphilologie: Literaturwissenschaft MA (Master's degree subject: German Language and Literature) Modul: Interphilologie: Literaturwissenschaft MA (Master's degree subject: French Language and Literature) Modul: Interphilologie: Literaturwissenschaft MA (Master's degree subject: Spanish Language and Literature) Modul: Interphilologie: Literaturwissenschaft MA (Master's degree subject: Italian Language and Literature) Modul: Interphilologie: Literaturwissenschaft MA (Master's degree subject: German Literature) Modul: Interphilologie: Literaturwissenschaft MA (Master's degree subject: Latin Philology) Modul: Interphilologie: Literaturwissenschaft MA (Master's degree subject: Nordic Philology) Modul: Interphilologie: Literaturwissenschaft MA (Master's Studies - Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences) Modul: Literaturtheorie (Master's degree program: Literary Studies) Modul: Theoretische Perspektiven MA (Master's degree subject: Media Studies) Wahlbereich Bachelor Medienwissenschaft: Empfehlungen (Bachelor's degree subject: Media Studies) Wahlbereich Master Geschichte: Empfehlungen (Master's degree subject: History) |
| Assessment format | continuous assessment |
| Assessment registration/deregistration | Reg.: course registration; dereg.: not required |
| Repeat examination | no repeat examination |
| Scale | Pass / Fail |
| Repeated registration | as often as necessary |
| Responsible faculty | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Offered by | Digital Humanities Lab |