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SUMMARY:Jack Chen “From Topos to Topic (Modeling): Conceptual Histories in Liter
ary Information Management”
DESCRIPTION:\nWhat do we mean when we speak about literary topics? In th
e history of rhetoric\, the notion of the topic was used to refer to sou
rces of argumentation\, templates by which an argument might be construc
ted. As adapted by Western literary scholars\, most prominently Ernst Ro
bert Curtius\, the term topic was used to denote a constitutive element
of literary composition\, a recurring theme or phrase that organized the
development of an argument in a literary text. A parallel case is found
in Chinese literary studies\, in which “topic” is used to translate the
term ti 體\, which is used to identify shared thematic commonalities wit
hin a given genre. From the perspective of literary information manageme
nt\, one might begin by considering the origins of these practices\, how
texts are organized and conceived across the histories of their product
ion.\n\nThe notion of topic in topic modeling is not unrelated to its us
age in literary theory. How the topic model works\, on a basic level\, i
s to examine the documents a particular corpus by means of a set of prob
abilistic algorithms that returns the hypothetical “topics” that would h
ave generated the documents. These topics are a kind of analytical ficti
on\, since the documents were never constructed by such means\, but they
provide valuable insight into latent textual structures—which I will ar
gue is not unlike the more intentional structures of rhetorical topoi. W
hat this talk will explore is the conceptual histories\, the possibiliti
es\, and the limits of a topic-based approached to literary studies.\n\n
For more details: https://events.la.psu.edu/event/jack-chen-from-topos-t
o-topic/
X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:What do we mean
when we speak about literary topics? In the history of rhetoric, the no
tion of the topic was used to refer to sources of argumentation, templat
es by which an argument might be constructed. As adapted by Western lite
rary scholars, most prominently Ernst Robert Curtius, the term topic was
used to denote a constitutive element of literary composition, a recurr
ing theme or phrase that organized the development of an argument in a l
iterary text. A parallel case is found in Chinese literary studies, in w
hich “topic” is used to translate the term ti 體, which is used
to identify shared thematic commonalities within a given genre. From the
perspective of literary information management, one might begin by cons
idering the origins of these practices, how texts are organized and conc
eived across the histories of their production.
The notion of topi
c in topic modeling is not unrelated to its usage in literary theory. Ho
w the topic model works, on a basic level, is to examine the documents a
particular corpus by means of a set of probabilistic algorithms that re
turns the hypothetical “topics” that would have generated the documents.
These topics are a kind of analytical fiction, since the documents were
never constructed by such means, but they provide valuable insight into
latent textual structures—which I will argue is not unlike the more int
entional structures of rhetorical topoi. What this talk will ex
plore is the conceptual histories, the possibilities, and the limits of
a topic-based approached to literary studies.
For more details: h
ttps://events.la.psu.edu/event/jack-chen-from-topos-to-topic/
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