Virtual Lecture: “Text Mining America’s German-Language Newspapers, 1830-1914” with Jana Keck

VIRTUAL LECTURE

PRE-REGISTRATION REQUIRED

Email Antje Petty (apetty@wisc.edu) to receive a Zoom link.

(Links will be emailed the day before the event.)

During the era of transatlantic mass migration in the nineteenth century, texts spread extensively through the emerging German American press network. This was made possible by innovations such as the rotary press, linotype and stereotype machines, advancements in telegraphic, ship, railroad systems as well as editors’ professional networks and the widespread custom of copying material. Which texts traveled across states and decades? This presentation focuses on the intricate system of textual exchange offering both distant and close readings of the German immigrant press. Additionally, it underscores a methodological innovation, demonstrating how newspapers, when treated as data, in conjunction with advanced computational methods, offer novel avenues for exploring digitized archives.

Jana Keck is a research fellow at the German Historical Institute Washington (GHI). She coordinates the GHI’s research area Digital History and the institute’s project “Migrant Connections,” a digital research infrastructure for German-American History. Her doctoral project “The German-American Press Network and Gender: A Scalable Reading of Transtextuality in Digitized Newspapers, 1830-1914” examines reprinting practices and genre conventions in the German immigrant press. The project received the first Peter Haber Prize for Digital History at the “53. Deutscher Historikertag” (German Historians Conference) in 2021.

This event is sponsored by the Max Kade Institute for German American Studies.