Between the Columns: A toolkit for periodical authorship attribution and display

FAIN: HAA-296411-24

University of Nebraska, Lincoln (Lincoln, NE 68503-2427)
Kevin McMullen (Project Director: June 2023 to present)
Stephanie Blalock (Co Project Director: June 2023 to present)
Stefan Schöberlein (Co Project Director: June 2023 to present)
Jason Stacy (Co Project Director: June 2023 to present)
Zachary J. Turpin (Co Project Director: June 2023 to present)

Refinement, expansion, and documentation of digital methods and tools to assist researchers in identifying authorship in unattributed content printed in newspapers and other periodicals.

This project seeks to create two interconnected innovations with clear utility for researchers and scholars of print culture who work with periodicals, including those without intensive DH training. First, we propose to extend and refine our successful method for the attribution of anonymous periodical writings that has the potential for broad applicability in the study of literary and historical texts. The uncertainty and fluidity of newspaper authorship that lies at the root of this attribution problem will in turn be reflected and clarified in our second innovation: an open-source web interface for the display of periodical materials that makes visible this fluidity and uncertainty of authorship, places attributed texts in the context of their larger periodical publication, and allows for user exploration of the surrounding periodical content.