2+2=5. The Poetics of Dyscalculia, or the Word and the Number in the Blind Spot of Digital Humanities

Authors

  • Susanne Strätling Freie Universität Berlin

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17892/app.2020.00010.237

Keywords:

digital humanities, dissidence, miscalculation, word-number relations, arithmetics, logometric, antinomic speech, literature and mathematics.

Abstract

Historically and systematically, the word and the number are closely related in many ways. The number often represents the stable, rational and literally calculable super-sign, while the word is associated with impermanence and indeterminacy. When the digital humanities convert texts into tables, they assume that more reliable and well-founded statements about literature can be made on the basis of numbers. But this conviction overlooks the fact that literature itself has written an extensive history of miscalculation. Indeed, literature counters the rampant numerical compulsion with an alternative – number dissidence. Using the example of the unequal equation 2+2=5, the article reconstructs this poetics of miscalculation.

Author Biography

Susanne Strätling, Freie Universität Berlin

Professorin für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft

Downloads

Published

11-11-2020

How to Cite

Strätling, Susanne. 2020. “2+2=5. The Poetics of Dyscalculia, or the Word and the Number in the Blind Spot of Digital Humanities”. Apparatus. Film, Media and Digital Cultures of Central and Eastern Europe, no. 10 (November). https://doi.org/10.17892/app.2020.00010.237.

Issue

Section

Articles

Similar Articles

<< < 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 > >> 

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.