INDIVIDUAL MIDTERM ASSIGNMENT

Due date: 12 April
Length: approximately 1000 words
Format: A post on your course blog 
Be sure to include: visuals, references to the readings of the course

(it is also possible to work in pairs on this assignment, virtually, but you will have to arrange the partnership, to carry it out within the regulations for social distancing.  I also would like to know in advance that you will be working together — I should be informed by email). 

You will choose a corpus (plural, corpora) of 3 different texts found in Project Gutenberg. Remember that a corpus of materials is a “reasoned” body of texts that share some important features in common.  Analyzing the corpus in this class has meant so far comparing the different texts for similarities and differences (remember the Little Cousin Series!). The code is written to work with 3 texts–stick to that. 

You will try out the gutenbergr package, run the notebook that we used in class and discuss the results. If you are working in pairs, you can work up to this stage together to get the code running. Where your project should diverge is in how you write up the project. 

You will want to do some research on the background authors, skim the materials of plot summaries of the works at hand (if you can find them). Use your findings as a way of returning to the readings to understand them better.  What results were expected? What results were surprising? Another way to say this is to combine the “surface or distant” analysis with some close up analysis. If could do more analysis (would more advanced code) what would you want to be able to do? 

You can choose your own texts, OR use one of the choices for corpora I provide below.  I am happy to speak about your choice of texts in virtual office hours. 

A.   There are a number of books about epidemics in PG. Who were their authors and what different perspectives do they represent? 

The Common Nature of Epidemics (Southwood-Smith) 
A History of Epidemics in Britain (Creighton) 
Epidemics Examined and Explained (Grove)

B.   Mystery novels by Agatha Christie (PG has five, pick three)

The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Poirot Investigates
The Secret Adversary
The Man in the Brown Suit
The Murder on the Links 

C.  At the end of the 19th century, there were many different translations and editions of the Thousand and One Nights into English.  Look at volume 1 of three of them: 

Andrew Lang’s The Arabian Nights Entertainments 
Richard Burton’s A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments
Lane-Poole, Poole, Harvey and Lane’s Thousand and One Nights

D.  Serial literature for young girls by Margaret Vandercook.  She wrote many series “Ranch Girls,” “Camp Fire Girls,” “Red Cross Girls,” “Girl Scouts”.