Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 2-4-2016 12:00 AM Making Machines Learn. Applications of Cultural Analytics to the Humanities Javier de la Rosa Pérez The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Juan Luis Suárez The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in Hispanic Studies A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Doctor of Philosophy © Javier de la Rosa Pérez 2016 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Digital Humanities Commons, Other Arts and Humanities Commons, and the Spanish Literature Commons Recommended Citation de la Rosa Pérez, Javier, "Making Machines Learn. Applications of Cultural Analytics to the Humanities" (2016). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 3486. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/3486 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Abstract The digitization of several million books by Google in 2011 meant the popularization of a new kind of humanities research powered by the treatment of cultural objects as data. Culturomics, as it is called, was born, and other initiatives resonated with such a methodological approach, as is the case with the recently formed Digital Humanities or Cultural Analytics. Intrinsically, these new quantitative approaches to culture all borrow from techniques and methods developed under the wing of the exact sciences, such as computer science, machine learning or statistics.