This is a methods class for graduate students. It carefully explores canonical models and examples of close reading (New Criticism, deconstruction) and archival research for the literary discipline. It does so in order to contextualize and understand the emergence of new empirical forms of textual criticism, such as “distant reading.” Students will gain a grasp of the arc of methodological innovations centered on reading and historicism in our discipline, while also getting a strong introduction to the digital humanities. (20th/21st)