This talk was delivered on April 2, 2016, at The Northeast Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Conference (NESEEES), held at NYU’s Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia Basil Lvoff Russian Formalism for and against Digital Humanities: Prolegomena Two brief disclaimers before I begin. Due to the time limit, I will speak about Russian Formalism primarily; besides, Digital Humanities is far more discussed whereas that aspect of Russian Formalism which allows for such comparisons is much lesser known. For the same reason (lack of time), I will not reference the work of my two teachers, Professors Michael Holquist and Ilya Kliger (present here), relating to the problems discussed in this paper. However, I want to emphasize that my work is in dialogue with theirs. 1 In contemporary literary theory—that is, as far back as most of us can remember— Russian Formalism is one of the first and Digital Humanities, the most recent attempt to elevate this discipline into a science. Surely, science has a variety of definitions, depending on a certain epoch, worldview, or national tradition. My understanding of the matter is best expressed in the words of Rens Bod, the author of A New History of the Humanities. He views the humanities as an essential “link in the history of science” and writes that the humanities are characterized by “the quest for patterns in humanistic material on the basis of methodological principles.” 2 The word “patterns” is key here. Looking for patterns is what the Russian Formalists and the Distant Readers have in common. 1. The two particular works I had in mind when writing this paper were Michael Holquist’s lecture “Dostoevskian Mathematics: Pattern, Event, Singularity” delivered on March 19, 2014, at Northwestern University; and Ilya Kliger’s paper “Dynamic Archeology or Distant Reading: Literary Science between Two Formalisms” delivered on April 13, 2015, at the conference entitled “Russian Formalism and the Digital Humanities,” organized by Jessica Merrill at the Stanford Humanities Center. 2. Rens Bod, A New History of the Humanities: The Search for Principles and Patterns from Antiquity to the Present (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 7.