j. berenike herrmann

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about publications lectures & talks teaching LiLi revisited colloquium

infinity photo by berenike herrmann at fondation beyeler, basel, CC-BY-SA

research colloquium “Linguistics and Literature revisited”

The Bielefeld research colloquium “Linguistics and Literature revisited” (“LiLi revisited: Digitale Schnittstellenforschung zwischen Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik”) fosters a vibrant interface between literary studies, (computer) linguistics, psychology and the social sciences. It is a forum for the discussion of current approaches and new findings in data-driven literary and cultural studies, addressing the forms and functions of textual phenomena in socio-historical contexts. We thus complement philological and social-historical perspectives by methods and theories from Digital Humanities (DH), Computational Literary Studies (CLS), Natural Language Processing (NLP) and the Empirical Study of Literature.

In addition to joint readings and the discussion of individual guest lectures, participants present ongoing projects, conduct data sessions and test new ideas. The colloquium is aimed at all interested participants. MA and BA students (including Literary Studies, Linguistics, Computational Linguistics, Media Studies) are very welcome.

Typically, one or two talks per semester are by invited external guests. We regularly co-invite guests together with the Computational/Digital Linguistics Work Group Meeting (chaired by Prof. Dr. Hendrik Buschmeier and Prof. Dr. Sina Zarrieß at Uni Bielefeld).

We are meeting weekly during the summer and winter terms, on Tuesdays 10:15–11:45. It’s possible to join via Zoom. Please drop me a line at: berenike.herrmann@uni-bielefeld.de

Here’s an overview of upcoming and past talks:

upcoming

Abstract: This talk explores how sound shapes the structure of literary prose by tracing patterns of auditory cues and loudness across narrative texts. Combining computational scene segmentation with fine-grained sound annotation, it examines character sounds and their varying intensity: from whispers to bursts of heightened loudness. Mapping these acoustic patterns onto narrative structure reveals sound as a dynamic and measurable feature of storytelling. Rather than serving as mere background detail, sound emerges as a key mechanism through which literary fiction structures experience and brings its scenes to life.

Abstract: This talk introduces a computational method for analysing how environments are represented in climate fiction, moving beyond simple keyword-based approaches. Rather than treating the environment as a set of isolated nouns, the method models environmental meaning as emerging from relations between entities, processes, and descriptive conditions. Combining distributional semantics with curated lexicon construction and manual validation, the approach distinguishes between trigger terms that signal environmental relevance and descriptor terms that qualify and shape environmental experience. Applied to a corpus of climate fiction, this two-stage pipeline reveals recurring semantic and descriptive patterns linked to environmental degradation, climatic extremity, and spatial transformation. The talk argues for a shift from keyword detection to relational models that better capture the stylistic and semantic complexity of literary environmental representation.

archive

winter term 2025/26

summer term 2025

winter term 2024/25

summer term 2024 (organized together with Daniel Kababgi)

winter term 2023/24 (organized together with Daniel Kababgi)

summer term 2022

(guest lectures in my literary history lecture)

summer term 2021

winter term 2020/21

FU Berlin, “Trends in data-driven humanities”