CV

Education

Stanford University
Ph.D., English
Graduate Certificate in Digital Humanities
2021

Harvard University
A.B., English, magna cum laude
2012

Harvard Graduate School of Education
Undergraduate Teacher Education Program
2012

University of Oxford
St Peter’s College
Visiting Student of English
2011

Appointments

Oregon State University
School of Writing, Literature, and Film
Assistant Professor of Digital Humanities and Literature
2025–

University of Richmond
Department of English
Visiting Assistant Professor of Data Science and Statistics
2024–2025

University of Virginia
College of Arts and Sciences
Postdoctoral Research Associate and Lecturer
2021–2024

Publications

Articles

Erik Fredner and J. D. Porter, “Counting on The Norton Anthology of American Literature,” PMLA 139.1: 50–65, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1632/S0030812923001189

Erik Fredner, “A Meaning Apart from Its Indistinguishable Words,” Nathaniel Hawthorne Review 48.1: 82–98, 202. https://doi.org/10.5325/nathhawtrevi.48.1.0082

Erik Fredner, “Hamlin Garland’s ‘Problem of Individual Life,’” Nineteenth-Century Literature 76.3: 354–383, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1525/ncl.2021.76.3.354

David McClure, Mark Algee-Hewitt, Steele Douris, Erik Fredner, and Hannah Walser, “Organizing Corpora at the Stanford Literary Lab: Balancing Simplicity and Flexibility in Metadata Management,” Proceedings of the Workshop on Challenges in the Management of Large Corpora: 25–29. https://ids-pub.bsz-bw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/6261

Book Chapter

Mark Algee-Hewitt, Erik Fredner, and Hannah Walser, “The Novel as Data,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Novel, ed. Eric Bulson, 189–216, Cambridge University Press, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316659694.013

Dataset

Erik Fredner, “Moving the Capital of US Literature from Boston to New York: Evidence from 11 Million Library of Congress Catalog Records,” The Nineteenth-Century Data Collective, ed. Meredith Martin and Megan Ward, Princeton University Libraries, 2025. https://doi.org/10.34770/xcgb-zn76

Review

Erik Fredner, “Enumerations: Data and Literary Study by Andrew Piper,” Studies in the Novel 52.2: 220–222, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1353/sdn.2020.0026

Dissertation

Erik Fredner, “Averaging Americans: Literature, Statistics, and Inequality,” doctoral dissertation, Stanford University, 2021. Committee: Gavin Jones, Mark Algee-Hewitt, Mark McGurl, and Paula Moya. https://purl.stanford.edu/rp802rv5947

Awards

College Fellows Development Grant supporting research on literature on Jeopardy!, University of Virginia, 2024.

College Fellows Development Grant supporting research on The MLA International Bibliography, University of Virginia, 2022.

Mellon Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, Stanford Humanities Center, 2020–2021.

City University of New York–Stanford Exchange Fellow, The City College of the City University of New York, 2018–2019.

G.J. Pigott Scholar, Stanford University, 2017–2018.

Excellence in Teaching Award, Stanford University, Department of English, 2017.

Presentations

“The Literary Canon on Jeopardy!, 1984–2024,” Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, 2025.

“The ‘Already Implicit’ Canon: Data from Anthologies of African American Literature,” Digital Americanists Panel, American Literature Association, Boston, Massachusetts, 2025.

“Leaving New York? Imprint Geographies of US Literature since 1945,” Stanford Literary Lab, 2025.

“The Ends of Reading,” Faculty and Staff Symposium, University of Richmond, 2024.

“The MLA International Bibliography’s History of English-Language Literary Studies,” Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations, George Mason University, 2024.

“Anthologies as Databases,” Digital Americanists Panel, American Literature Association, Chicago, Illinois, 2024.

“The Ends of Reading: Reading Statistics and the Overestimation of Literary Studies’ Aim,” Reader Studies in the Digital Age Symposium, Price Lab for Digital Humanities, University of Pennsylvania, 2024.

“How Much is Literary Knowledge Worth on Jeopardy?” Stanford Literary Lab, 2024.

“How to Publish (Computational) Literary Studies Research,” Stanford University, Department of English, 2024.

“Challenging Nineteenth-Century Data Legacies,” Mellon Sawyer Seminar, Stanford Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis, 2024.

“Mining The MLA International Bibliography,” Stanford Literary Lab, 2024.

“Mining The MLA International Bibliography,” Modern Language Association, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2024.

“Du Bois, Statistical Thinking, and Irony,” Modern Language Association, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2024.

“Implications of Large Language Models for Teaching and Research,” University of Virginia, New Curriculum Pedagogy Workshop, 2023.

“How Literary Canons Evolve: A Data-Driven Approach,” The College of William & Mary, Department of English, 2023.

“Elden Ring and Exegesis,” University of Virginia, Department of English Speakers Series, 2023.

“What Good is Distant Reading for Our Reading?” Duke University, 2023.

“On Scholarly Podcasting,” Stanford Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis, 2022.

“Counting on The Norton Anthology of American Literature,” DH Unbound, Association for Computers and the Humanities, 2022.

“Counting on Literature,” University of Virginia, New Curriculum Lecture, 2021.

“Length and Weight,” Universitatea Lucian Blaga, Sibiu, Romania, 2021.

“Introduction to Computational Text Analysis in Python,” Stanford Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis, 2021.

“New Histories of Quantitative and Computational Methods,” Modern Language Association, Toronto, Canada, 2021.

“Citizenship at Scale,” C19, University Park, Pennsylvania, 2020.

“Antebellum and Postbellum,” Stanford Literary Lab, 2020.

“Typicality in the US Novel,” Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations, Ottawa, Canada, 2020.

“Celebrities,” Stanford Literary Lab, 2020.

“Introduction to Computational Text Analysis in Python,” Stanford Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis, 2020.

“Models of Enlightenment Knowledge” (presider), Modern Language Association, Seattle, Washington, 2020.

“Modeling Hawthorne’s Concept of the Nation,” Modern Language Association, Seattle, Washington, 2020.

“Microgenres,” Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations, Utrecht, Netherlands, 2019.

“n Types of Typicality,” Stanford Literary Lab, 2018.

“Norton Anthologies: Database, Canon, Career,” Stanford Literary Lab, 2018.

“The Statistical Imaginations of Hamlin Garland and Henry James,” Stanford University, Department of English, 2018.

“Typicality,” Stanford Literary Lab, 2018.

“Distant Reading with the Oxford English Dictionary,” Stanford Literary Lab, 2017.

“Reformism and Statistics in Jason Edwards,” Stanford Consortium on the Novel, 2017.

“The Type of the Average,” Stanford Working Group on the Novel, 2017.

“Microgenres,” Stanford Literary Lab, 2017.

“Reading the Norton Anthologies,” Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations, Montreal, Canada, 2017.

“Security in Foreign Affairs,” Stanford Literary Lab, 2017.

“Synchronic and Diachronic Suspense,” Stanford Literary Lab, 2017.

“How Many Novels Have Been Published in English?” Stanford Literary Lab, 2017.

“Reading Norton Anthologies,” SyncDH, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2016.

“Reading the Norton Anthologies: Databases, Canons, and Careers,” Stanford Literary Lab, 2016.

“Standing Underneath: Melville, Confidence, Testimony,” Berkeley-Stanford Conference, University of California, Berkeley, 2016.

“Fallible and Unreliable Narration in The Sound and The Fury,” Stanford University, Narrative and Narrative Theory, 2015.

“Another Castle: The Stolen Princess Narrative in Literature and Video Games,” Stanford University, Infinite Possibilities: The Speculative Fiction Working Group, 2015.

“Virality,” Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations, Sydney, Australia, 2015.

“Suspense... Language, Narrative, Affect,” Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations, Sydney, Australia, 2015.

“Current Projects of the Literary Lab,” SyncDH, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2015.

“Two Blocks Joined by a Corridor: Time in To The Lighthouse,” Stanford Literary History, 2015.

“Inveigling Uncle Tom’s Cabin to Become a Ballet: cummings’s Tom,” Berkeley-Stanford Conference, Stanford, California, 2014.

“On the Stanford Literary Lab’s Pamphlet Series,” Future of Publication Workshop, Stanford, California, 2014.

Collaborations

“Counting on Anthologies of African American Literature,” with J. D. Porter, Arthur Knight, and Alexander Nwala, 2022–.

“The MLA International Bibliography as Literary History,” with Mark Algee-Hewitt, 2021–.

“Typicality,” with Mark Algee-Hewitt, 2018.

“Microgenres,” with Mark Algee-Hewitt, Michaela Bronstein, Abigail Droge, Ryan Heuser, Alexander Manshel, Nichole Nomura, J. D. Porter, and Hannah Walser, 2017.

“Security,” with Mark Algee-Hewitt, Whitney McIntosh, and Stephen Stedman, 2015.

“Suspense,” with Mark Algee-Hewitt, Abigail Droge, Tasha Eccles, Morgan Day Frank, J. D. Porter, Andrew Shephard, and Hannah Walser, 2014.

Teaching

As instructor of record

Data Science and Statistics 389 “Advanced Data Science,” University of Richmond, 2024–2025.

Data Science and Statistics 289 “Introduction to Data Science,” University of Richmond, 2024–2025.

“Text Classification with Large Language Models,” The Text Analysis Pedagogy Institute, 2024.

Empirical and Scientific Engagement 1520 “From Language to Data,” University of Virginia, 2021–2024.

Engaging Aesthetics 1510 “Punching Up: US Satire,” University of Virginia, 2021–2024.

Summer Research Program, Stanford Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis, 2020.

English 184E “Literary Text Mining,” Stanford University, 2018–2019.

World Humanities 101 “What It Is Like To Be Alive,” The City College of New York, 2018–2019.

English 162W “Average Americans: Writing Intensive Seminar in English,” Stanford University, 2017–2018.

As teaching assistant

English 184E “Literary Text Mining,” Stanford University (instructor Ryan Heuser), 2018–2019.

English 396L Pedagogy, Stanford University (instructor Paula Moya), 2017–2018.

English 161 “Narrative and Narrative Theory,” Stanford University (instructors Paula Moya and J. D. Porter), 2015–2016.

English 100C “Literary History III (1850–1950),” Stanford University (instructor Franco Moretti), 2014–2015.

Public Humanities

Roles

Data scientist, “The Stuff of Fame,” Stanford Literary Lab and Smithsonian Institution, 2019–2021.

Editor, Café podcast, Stanford Center for the Study of the Novel, 2019–2021.

Presenter, Data Privacy and Security Workshop, Stanford University, 2017–2021.

Contributor, Techne, Stanford Literary Lab, 2016–.

Writer, Kill Screen magazine, Kill Screen Media, 2014–2016.

Writer, Ph.D. Journalist Project, Stanford Humanities Center, 2014–2016.

Articles

“Read for Pleasure,” Center for Humanities Communication, forthcoming.

“Typicality in US Literature,” Techne, 2020.

“Finding Needles in 34 Million Haystacks,” Techne, 2019.

“How Many Novels Have Been Published in English? An Attempt,” Techne, 2017.

“The Peculiar Future of Video Game History,” Kill Screen, 2016.

“Eavan Boland Interrogates Identity and Nationhood in New Collection,” The Humanities at Stanford, 2015.

“Stanford Literary Scholar: White Whales and the ‘Melville Effect,’” The Humanities at Stanford, 2015.

“The Year in Anti-Games,” Kill Screen, 2014.

“Stanford Scholar Questions Whether Statues Are the Appropriate Way to Commemorate Mandela,” The Humanities at Stanford, 2014.

Podcasts

“Matriculation: The Academic Transition to College,” Symposia, Brown Residential College at the University of Virginia, 2022.

Andrea Goulet, Michelle Robinson, and Hector Hoyos on Crime Narrative, Café, Stanford Center for the Study of the Novel, 2021.

Nicholas Paige on Technologies of the Novel, Café, Stanford Center for the Study of the Novel, 2021.

Dorothy Hale, Nancy Ruttenburg, and Alex Woloch on The Novel and the New Ethics, Café, Stanford Center for the Study of the Novel, 2021.

Sharon Marcus on the 2020 Ian Watt Lecture, Café, Stanford Center for the Study of the Novel, 2021.

Wai Chee Dimock, John Plotz, and Colin Milburn on Planetary Futures, Café, Stanford Center for the Study of the Novel, 2020.

Ato Quayson, John Kerrigan, and Richard Halpern on Postcolonial Tragedy, Café, Stanford Center for the Study of the Novel, 2020.

Emily Apter, Rhonda Garelick, and Anne Higonnet on Fashion Stories, Café, Stanford Center for the Study of the Novel, 2020.

Stephen Best, Mario Telo, and Kris Cohen on None Like Us, Café, Stanford Center for the Study of the Novel, 2020.

Rita Felski on the 2019 Ian Watt Lecture, Café, Stanford Center for the Study of the Novel, 2019.

Service

Reviewer, Humanities, 2025–.

Reviewer, Post45 Data Collective, 2025–.

Reviewer, PMLA, 2024–.

Generative Artificial Intelligence Committee, University of Richmond, Department of English, 2024–2025.

Reviewer, National Endowment for the Humanities Office of Digital Humanities, 2024–.

Invited referee, European Research Council, 2023–.

Reviewer, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, 2022–.

Consultant, Stanford University, Department of English transition to virtual instruction, 2020.

Website administrator, Stanford Literary Lab, 2017–2020.

Reviewer, Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations Conference, 2016–.

Liaison, Berkeley-Stanford English Graduate Student Councils, 2015–2019.

Examiner, American literature practice qualifying exams, Stanford University, Department of English, 2015–2018.

Coordinator, Stanford Literary Lab, 2014–2019.

Conferences Organized

“Findings: Is Computation Changing the Study of Literature?” Stanford University, 2017.

“Literature: A History of the Word,” Stanford University, 2016.

“Making and Breaking: The Berkeley-Stanford Conference,” University of California, Berkeley, 2015.

“Micromégas: The Objects of the Digital Humanities,” Stanford University, 2015.

Affiliations

The Association for Computers and the Humanities, 2020–.

American Literature Association, 2020–.

C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists, 2019–.

Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations, 2014–.

Modern Language Association, 2014–.

Technical

Programming: Python, R, Tidyverse, Jupyter, RStudio, zsh, git.

Scientific publishing: Pandoc, Quarto, Markdown, LaTeX, Django, HTML.

Databases: PostgreSQL, DBeaver.

Data visualization: matplotlib, ggplot, Tableau.

Natural language processing: nltk, spaCy, stanza, Ollama, LLM APIs.

Languages

Spanish (intermediate); French (reading); Chinese (two semesters).

References

Available upon request.