On August 17, the E-Center hosted Danil Skorinkin, a computer literary scholar, digital humanities coordinator at the University of Potsdam (Germany) and editor-in-chief of sysblok.ru independent media. The title of the lecture already suggests what he was talking about: after all, what does digital technology give to a person who studies humanities, literature, art or history?

After forming fundamental ideas about technological development and integration, the audience got acquainted with a tool that works with texts. It analyzes thousands of words at once stylistically and as a result “recognizes” the author of the text and their style. With this simple technology working with Python Danil Skorinkin even did a cluster analysis of the works of several Armenian writers, Arpiar Arpiaryan, Khachatur Abovyan and Muratsan.

Of course, the speaker addressed various subjects of study: from the rhetoric of the first parliamentary forces of France to fine arts, etc. Another interesting part was the hypothesis that, perhaps, over the course of 75 years, the frames of Hollywood films have become faster and darker. Even the palette of the film posters has changed, from warm, reddish shades to cooler, bluish tones.

Answering the question posed in the title, Skorinkin claims that a person working in any field of humanities really needs data analysis both to facilitate, automate, speed up various activities, and to keep up with new discoveries and technological advancements.