DH Lecture: Reading Poetry's Data with Meredith Martin
In this talk, Martin will argue that one way to learn how to use AI for humanities research is to start by learning about how to use large, unstructured humanities corpora to create meaningful humanities arguments. In both instances, the processes of curating and constraining data and developing reliable methods-testing in is both crucial and challenging. Martin uses poetry as a test case for arguments from her recent book Poetry’s Data: it is as important to know what you are searching in as it is to know what you are searching for. Bringing together her work in historical poetics and humanities and AI, Martin argue for the creation of context-first evaluations both in humanities and machine learning research that explores cultural objects.
Reception to follow.
Meredith Martin is Professor of English at Princeton University and the Director of the Center for Digital Humanities; she is also the founder. She has published two books: The Rise and Fall of Meter: Poetry and English National Culture 1860-1930 and Poetry’s Data: Digital Humanities and the History of Prosody and her work has appeared in PMLA, Modernism/Modernity, Victorian Studies, Victorian Poetry, English Literary History, and Victorian Literature and Culture among other venues. She advocates for the humanities and historically informed reading practices in teaching poetry and critical data studies. She is especially interested in the translations, revelations, and shared infrastructures that create rigorous, innovative, interdisciplinary collaborative work.
This event is sponsored by the UVA Department of English and the Digital Humanities Center, in collaboration with the Data Analytics Center. It is free and open to all.
- Date:
- Thursday, November 5, 2026
- Time:
- 4:00pm - 6:00pm
- Location:
- English Faculty Lounge, 229 Bryan Hall
- Categories:
- Digital Humanities Scholars' Lab
- Presenter:
- Meredith Martin
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