Audoktor Paul Cobley avalik loeng „Thinking: close and distant“

Name: Audoktor Paul Cobley avalik loeng „Thinking: close and distant“
Start: 2025-12-02T12:15:00+02:00
Location: Lossi 3-328, Tartu

Schedule

Tue, 02 Dec, 2025 at 12:15 pm

UTC+02:00

Location

Lossi 3-328, Tartu | Tartu, TA

/in Eng below/
2. detsembril kell 12.15 peab Tartu Ülikooli audoktoriks kuulutatud Paul Cobley Lotmani loengute sarjas avaliku ettekande „Thinking: close and distant“ („Mõtlemine: lähedalt ja distantsilt“). Ingliskeelne loeng toimub Lossi 3 ruumis 328. Kõik huvilised on oodatud.
Avatud loengus käsitleb Cobley kauglugemise kriitikat ja lähilugemisele vastandumist ning seab kahtluse arusaama, et lugemise mõõtkava/ulatus on otseselt seotud tõlgenduse kvaliteediga – emotsionaalselt nüansirikkama lähenemisega, mis rõhutab lugeja rolli „kirjandusliku mõõtkava väliste ja sisemiste tegurite“ kaalumisel (Orlemanski 2014: 230). Cobley näitab, et mõõtkava küsimus on märksa keerukam, kui kvalitatiivsete ja kvantitatiivsete meetodite näiline vastandus lubaks arvata (Eve 2019). Ta püüab näidata, kuidas uued arutelud lugemise olemuse üle (Trasmundi ja Cobley 2021; Engberg-Pedersen jt 2023) seavad kahtluse alla ja samas täiendavad tehisaru mõõtkavaga seotud ootusi ja lubadusi.
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On 2 December at 12:15, Paul Cobley — honorary doctor of the University of Tartu — will deliver a public lecture titled “Thinking: close and distant” as part of the Juri Lotman Lecture Series. All interested participants are warmly welcome.
Despite influential contributions by Lacková and Falýnek (2021), Compagno (2018), and Fontanille (1992), semiotics has remained largely oriented towards qualitative close reading rather than quantitative approaches (Sonesson 2026). This raises important questions: How significant are issues of scale and quantity for semiotics? And how do they relate to the central role of close reading as a scholarly practice?
Parallel to the rise of the digital humanities and the growing possibilities offered by Big Data analysis and other computational methods, Moretti launched his project of distant reading in 2013 — in explicit contrast to the established practice of close reading. Yet Moretti had already outlined the potential of distant reading in a 2000 recapitulation of the Annales School method. It can even be argued that computational methods have a much longer history (Igarashi 2015). The opposition between close and distant reading is often framed as a matter of scale, sometimes accompanied by the claim that distant reading entails a loss of attention and diminished focus (Editors of SubStance 2009).
Cobley’s public lecture examines the criticism of distant reading in opposition to close reading, questioning the assumption that the scale of reading directly corresponds to its quality — understood as a more affectively nuanced interpretation that highlights the reader’s negotiation of “extrinsic and intrinsic determinants of literary scale” (Orlemanski 2014: 230). Cobley argues that the issue of scale is far more complex than the apparent dichotomy between qualitative and quantitative methods suggests (Eve 2019). He will show how recent debates on the nature of reading itself (Trasmundi and Cobley 2021; Engberg et al. 2023) challenge and, at the same time, enrich the scale-related promises of Artificial Intelligence.
Further information: https://filsem.ut.ee/en/news/honorary-doctor-paul-cobley-deliver-public-lecture-opposition-between-close-and-distant
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