Doing (Computational) Literary Studies

Notwithstanding many differences within and between them, computational literary studies (CLS) and other literary fields do the same thing: they enact the phenomena they investigate by writing with writing. To make this argument, I present performativity as the endemic (though undertheorized) condition of literary knowledge, including in CLS, where it is latent: practiced by disavowed. When literary ways of writing with writing are enacted with computational heritages and modes of being and knowing, and vice versa—and when what is done is not disavowed—I call this (computational) literary studies. Such ways of writing with writing realize the potential of literary knowledge as an openness to ontological multiplicity that enables many good ways of knowing literary phenomena better. Done in this way, the discipline (re)generates itself with its phenomena. Responding to changes (and continuities) in the materials and norms of writing, literary studies continues because it continues to change.