Project description DEENESFRITPL A scientific study of literary evolution integrating AI, statistical modelling and Big Data Big Data and digitalisation offer opportunities for tremendous insight in fields far beyond science and technology. Literature is now consumed on electronic devices. Readers’ thoughts about what they have read appear on digital platforms including review sites and social media. The ERC-funded GOLEM project will take advantage of the unprecedented data including the stories read and their effects on the readers as gleaned from digital and social media comments. Harnessing machine learning and statistical modelling tools and comparing the relations between stories in five different languages, the team will create accurate models that shed light on how fiction adapts to societal circumstances and cultures. Show the project objective Hide the project objective Objective The “Graphs and Ontologies for Literary Evolution Models” (GOLEM) project will create statistically robust models explaining how fiction evolves, based on the analysis of millions of stories and the effects they have on readers. This is the first time in history that this kind of data is available on such a large scale, thanks to the fact that readers all over the world use digital and social media to share fictional stories and to comment on them, e.g. on fanfiction websites or on publishing platforms like Wattpad. GOLEM will use computational literary studies and cultural evolution theory to create accurate models of how the (formal and content-related) cultural traits found in fiction spread and combine. The basis of this evolutionary analysis of fiction will be a knowledge graph database – an infrastructure of interlinked data about stories and reader response – which will be used to test hypotheses related to the accumulation of cultural traits in stories and their effectiveness in achieving cognitive and emotional effects on readers. State-of-the-art machine learning algorithms and advanced statistical modelling tools will be employed to create a major breakthrough in computational literary studies, possibly also contributing to the revision of cultural evolution theories. By focusing on the relations between stories in five different languages, collected from countries in all continents, GOLEM will provide an unprecedented insight into how storytelling, one of the most ancient cultural systems, evolves. Literary history and criticism have offered refined accounts of how fiction works, mostly relying on case studies of limited extent. It is now time to provide robust statistical evidence of the anthropological function of fiction and of how it adapts to different circumstances and cultures, empowering readers to cope with their cultural or societal contexts. Keywords computational literary studies reader response cultural evolution Programme(s) HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme Topic(s) ERC-2021-STG - ERC STARTING GRANTS Call for proposal ERC-2021-STG See other projects for this call Funding Scheme ERC - Support for frontier research (ERC) Coordinator RIJKSUNIVERSITEIT GRONINGEN Net EU contribution € 1 194 088,75 Address Broerstraat 5 9712CP Groningen Netherlands See on map Region Noord-Nederland Groningen Overig Groningen Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Other funding € 0,00
