PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Spatial distant reading uses computational means to investigate fictional representations of space as a central category of sense-making (Lefebre, 1974), both in fictional world building (e.g., Bologna, 2020) and in societal contexts (e.g., Wilkens, 2021). Our spatial distant reading project investigates the affective topologies of German-Swiss literature to examine different types of spatial representation in fictional Swiss-German prose between 1854 and 1930, assessing iconic differences such as culture/nature, urban/rural (Rehm, 2014), as well as the (alpine) mountains’ role in Swiss literary national framing (Zimmer, 1998). A key resource is a list of spatial terms (N=187,421 entities), including spatial named entities, other urban and rural toponyms, as well as natural terms (Grisot & Herrmann, in prep.). In the current paper, we take a methodological focus on this resource, exploring word embeddings for validation (Task A) and extension (Task B) of our spatial entity lists.