Ghostly Statistics: Revenge Tragedies and Natural Language Processing

An introduction to the study of Renaissance revenge tragedies using traditional literary methodologies alongside computational tools. The course readings include foundational classical texts that define the genre of tragedy, some of the most important authors of revenge tragedies—from Marlowe to Webster—and modern philosophical accounts of revenge and justice. The computational approach covers the mathematical concepts of linear algebra and statistics used in Natural Language processing, with applications in Python, with a goal of developing a working intuition of how language models work. No mathematical prerequisites and no prior familiarity with Renaissance literature necessary.