Edited, developed, and maintained since 2007, the Princeton Prosody Archive (PPA) is a dynamic collection of historical documents about the study of poetry, pronunciation, and versification from 1559 to 1928. The PPA is the most comprehensive collection of historical texts about English-language prosody – or prosody in any modern language – in the world. Its combined scale and precision enable scholars to pose entirely new research questions of poetic and prosodic history. The PPA was developed at The Center for Digital Humanities, celebrating its 10th anniversary in the academic year 2024-25. To commemorate this historic year, which coincides with the completion of the PPA’s development, we are bringing together literary, computational, and literary-computational scholars in a unified conference: The Ends of Prosody.
The Ends of Prosody celebrates the breadth of research the PPA enables, forging new intersections between disciplines. In an initial PPA computational workshop, scholars from the computational strand of the conference will be invited to explore the PPA’s data and propose essays based on their findings. A series of panels will follow, composed of scholars invited to present their research on prosody, undertaken using the PPA. To conclude the conference, a series of lightning talks will unite these approaches to the archive, meditating on the ways in which we might conceive of poetry as data.
This conference is made possible by the support of the Princeton University Humanities Council and the Bain-Swiggett Fund of the Department of English.
Program Schedule
| Wed, May 14 | |
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All day. Center for Digital Humanities, Firestone Library |
Data play day for invited computational scholars to explore the full data of the Princeton Prosody Archive. Lunch and dinner provided. |
| Thurs, May 15 | |
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9 am - 12 pm Julis Romo Rabinowitz Building, Room 399 |
Continued data play for invited computational scholars. After this time, Room 397 will be available as a breakout room (Thursday and Friday). |
10 am - 11 am Julius Romo Rabinowitz Building, Room 397. |
Graduate student meeting for all participating graduate students (external and Princeton). |
12 pm - 1 pm Julis Romo Rabinowitz Building, Room 399 |
Lunch |
1 pm - 3 pm Julis Romo Rabinowitz Building, Room 399 |
An Introduction to the Ends of Prosody and the Princeton Prosody Archive Speakers: Meredith Martin & Wouter Haverals, Rebecca Sutton Koeser & Laure Thompson |
3:30 pm - 5:30 pm Julis Romo Rabinowitz Building, Room 399 |
Panel 1: “Conflicting Systems” Speakers: Courtney Weiss Smith, Virginia Jackson, Denae Dyck & Kaitlyn Fralick |
6 pm - 9 pm Bendheim House |
Evening reception for all participants. |
| Fri, May 16 | |
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9 am - 10:15 am Julis Romo Rabinowitz Building, Room 399 |
Panel 2: “Examples, Experiments, Experience” Speakers: Ewan Jones, Casie Legette, Meredith McGill |
10:30 am - 12 pm Julis Romo Rabinowitz Building, Room 399 |
Panel 3: Data presentations Speakers: James Zhang, Wouter Haverals, John Ladd |
12 pm - 1 pm Julis Romo Rabinowitz Building, Room 399 |
Lunch |
1 pm - 3 pm Julis Romo Rabinowitz Building, Room 399 |
Panel 4: Data Presentations Speakers: Artjoms Šeļa, Petr Plecháč & Neža Kočnik; Anna Preus, Mark Algee-Hewitt & Unjoo Oh, Melanie Walsh |
3:15 pm - 5:15 pm Julis Romo Rabinowitz Building, Room 399 |
Panel 5: Data Presentations Speakers: Natalie Houston, David Mimno, David Smith, David Bamman, Ryan Heuser |
5:45 pm - 6:45 pm Location TBD |
Happy hour and caucus for all participating graduate students (external and Princeton) |
| Sat, May 17 | |
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9 am - 10:30 am Julis Romo Rabinowitz Building, Room 399 |
Breakfast and caucus for all participating graduate students (external and Princeton) |
10:30 am - 11:30 am Julis Romo Rabinowitz Building, Room 399 |
Keynote: Yopie Prins |
11:30 am - 12:00 pm Julis Romo Rabinowitz Building, Room 399 |
Graduate student summation speech |