I have seen the future of the digital humanities—and it is full of hope! It is also full of many happy afternoons spent following hyperlinks into fascinating, and extremely nerdy, cultural niches. Let me explain…

We all love to see evidence in argumentative writing. We drill the necessity of evidence into our students; and research stands or falls on the quality of evidence used to support the researcher’s claims. In my own work I am a compulsive example-giver, never happier than when typing in a block quote, or reeling off names of authors, or works, that fit into some scheme I am making a claim for. Lately, though, I have wondered how our taste for evidence is shaped by confirmation bias : the very strong cognitive preference to look for, to notice—and to present in scholarship—only evidence that supports our larger claims and pre-existing ideas. In (my idealization of) scientific experiments, the practice of controls is supposed to guard against this bias.¹ What would be the controls of literary scholarship? How would we actively seek out potentially discomfirming evidence? And—here’s the kicker—how can we present the confirmatory value of not finding it?²

The project of developing new and better frameworks for the study of twentieth-century literature continues! I have been part of a number of events related to this project; most recently Colin Gillis and I co-organized a seminar at the American Comparative Literature Association conference on Institutions of Periodization more generally. In the past we have also convened two panels at MSA 12 on “Modernist Studies Without Modernism,” as well as a 2009 MSA seminar under the same title. If you are interested in joining an electronic mailing list for twentieth-century studies or in participating in future work on this subject, please contact me.