Unjust Readings: Against the New New Criticism

Unjust Readings: Against the New New Criticism" offers a theoretical and methodological defence of the use of digital humanities methods for literary interpretation. I argue that extant critiques of DH from Fish, Da, Eyers and others depend on an unexamined notion of the appropriate work of the humanities and, in particular, of literary interpretation. Their claim, that critics should simply "just read" obscures the manner in which literary interpretation is never simply 'just reading.' I argue that DH not only raises interpretive possibilities that would be impossible without digital tools but also foregrounds the methodological choices and theoretical paradigms that so often are unstated, or implicit, in traditional humanities work. Inherent to the interpretive act that moves between the digital and the humanities is a need to state how the critic works between the two, thereby making the interpretive frame explicit. I then demonstrate a number of examples, from my research and the work of others, that demonstrate this productive capacity of DH in order to further refute that critics should simply 'just read' the texts.