The Digital Humanities in the Czech Republic

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the issue of Digital Humanities (DH) in Czech literary studies. Over the last decade, various methods primarily connected with DH have had a substantial impact on the development of numerous areas of the humanities. In Czech literary studies, this impact is visible only from 2017 onwards, when official discussion between Czech scholars about the topic was initiated. The recent development of this tradition is the main reason why DH have not gained as strong position in Czech literary studies as they have abroad. However, there exists a tradition of the use of so-called exact methods in literary studies in the Czech scholarly milieu, and this tradition serves as an important domestic source for the full development of DH in Czech literary studies. While these exact methods are examined in the paper, its main purpose is to introduce two contemporary Czech DH projects in literary studies – the first being the Corpus of Czech Verse and the second the Corpus of Czech Prose, the latter of which currently serves as a base for a subject-project on Prague Fictional Topography. These two projects can be viewed as representatives of the situation and role of DH in contemporary Czech literary studies.

Keywords

• czech literary studies
• digital humanities
• digital corpus of czech verse
• formalism
• structuralism
• topographical models in literary studies