Medieval History
This had led me down a rabbit's hole...
Apparently, a group of French researchers have been going through medieval land transactions in the province of Lot (in S. France) to reconstruct social networks. The title of this piece is "Social Networking gets Medieval." From the title and my short description, I was thinking that they had constructed a computer model (a la Facebook) to reconstruct social networks in late medieval France. But that's not quite what these researchers did.
Publishing their findings in the journal Neurocomputing, these researchers went through legal transactions to figure out who knew who and where and when. Their conclusion? There are lots of pretty graphs and they figure out that these statistical models can help historians in some ways, although social context matters greatly and a "perfect community" (whatever that means) can't really be constructed.
I don't really know what to make of all this. On the one hand, computer modeling of intricate relationships - especially if it were user-friendly and widely available on the web - would be tremendously useful, especially if you're dealing with (what seem to be) tight social networks, like we do indeed have in most areas of the Middle Ages (and elsewhere). One could log-in, add a name and some information about that person, and have the program automatically draw out possible connections to other people that other scholars have found.
On the other hand, I think what they're doing is just called prosopography and I think Jonathan Jarrett (among others) knows a heck of a lot about. These French mathematicians are, in a sense, reinventing the wheel here, rather than utilizing the voluminous literature on social networks in the Middle Ages that generations of (predominantly German) scholars have put together. Look at what Paul Ormerod says about quantitative analysis. He's just plain wrong. This model is all numbers without the analysis.
Now, my head's a little fuzzy. When I saw Nature.com's headine, I was expecting Facebook to be made relevant to me as a scholar. Now, I'm dealing with free-lance economist/ historian consultants and statistical analysis of social networks. Help!
- Codex
This week I read Lev Grossman's Codex (Orlando: Harcourt, 2004), an novel about an investment banker (Edward Wozny) who gets pulled into a mystery surrounding a lost medieval book. When asked to organize the private library of a duke and duchess...
- Cfp International Workshop 'linking The Mediterranean: Regional And Transregional Interactions (300-800ce)' Vienna 11-13 December 2014
With apologies for any cross-posting: We intend to host a workshop, on 11 to 13 December 2014, at Austrian Academy, Vienna. True to the nature of a workshop, the format will consist of a discussion of pre-circulated papers. The...
- Sharp Peter Isaac Essay Prize
In honour of our founder, the late Professor Peter Isaac, Print Networks announces the foundation of a biennial essay prize for the best essay in the field of the History of the Book Trade in the Anglophone world. The Rules 1. The essay can be on any...
- Interface 2010: Humanities And Technologies
InterFace 2010: Humanities and Technologies 2nd International Symposium for Humanities and Technology July 15th-16th 2010, International Digital Laboratory, University of Warwick, UK. Paper Deadline: 10th May. 1000 Word abstract. InterFace is a new type...
- Passages From Antiquity To The Middle Ages Iii
The registration to the conference is open until June 16! http://www.uta.fi/trivium/registration.htm ____________________________________________________________________ DE AMICITIA - SOCIAL NETWORKS AND RELATIONSHIPS PASSAGES FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE MIDDLE...
Medieval History
Using "Facebook" for Research
This had led me down a rabbit's hole...
Apparently, a group of French researchers have been going through medieval land transactions in the province of Lot (in S. France) to reconstruct social networks. The title of this piece is "Social Networking gets Medieval." From the title and my short description, I was thinking that they had constructed a computer model (a la Facebook) to reconstruct social networks in late medieval France. But that's not quite what these researchers did.
Publishing their findings in the journal Neurocomputing, these researchers went through legal transactions to figure out who knew who and where and when. Their conclusion? There are lots of pretty graphs and they figure out that these statistical models can help historians in some ways, although social context matters greatly and a "perfect community" (whatever that means) can't really be constructed.
I don't really know what to make of all this. On the one hand, computer modeling of intricate relationships - especially if it were user-friendly and widely available on the web - would be tremendously useful, especially if you're dealing with (what seem to be) tight social networks, like we do indeed have in most areas of the Middle Ages (and elsewhere). One could log-in, add a name and some information about that person, and have the program automatically draw out possible connections to other people that other scholars have found.
On the other hand, I think what they're doing is just called prosopography and I think Jonathan Jarrett (among others) knows a heck of a lot about. These French mathematicians are, in a sense, reinventing the wheel here, rather than utilizing the voluminous literature on social networks in the Middle Ages that generations of (predominantly German) scholars have put together. Look at what Paul Ormerod says about quantitative analysis. He's just plain wrong. This model is all numbers without the analysis.
Now, my head's a little fuzzy. When I saw Nature.com's headine, I was expecting Facebook to be made relevant to me as a scholar. Now, I'm dealing with free-lance economist/ historian consultants and statistical analysis of social networks. Help!
- Codex
This week I read Lev Grossman's Codex (Orlando: Harcourt, 2004), an novel about an investment banker (Edward Wozny) who gets pulled into a mystery surrounding a lost medieval book. When asked to organize the private library of a duke and duchess...
- Cfp International Workshop 'linking The Mediterranean: Regional And Transregional Interactions (300-800ce)' Vienna 11-13 December 2014
With apologies for any cross-posting: We intend to host a workshop, on 11 to 13 December 2014, at Austrian Academy, Vienna. True to the nature of a workshop, the format will consist of a discussion of pre-circulated papers. The...
- Sharp Peter Isaac Essay Prize
In honour of our founder, the late Professor Peter Isaac, Print Networks announces the foundation of a biennial essay prize for the best essay in the field of the History of the Book Trade in the Anglophone world. The Rules 1. The essay can be on any...
- Interface 2010: Humanities And Technologies
InterFace 2010: Humanities and Technologies 2nd International Symposium for Humanities and Technology July 15th-16th 2010, International Digital Laboratory, University of Warwick, UK. Paper Deadline: 10th May. 1000 Word abstract. InterFace is a new type...
- Passages From Antiquity To The Middle Ages Iii
The registration to the conference is open until June 16! http://www.uta.fi/trivium/registration.htm ____________________________________________________________________ DE AMICITIA - SOCIAL NETWORKS AND RELATIONSHIPS PASSAGES FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE MIDDLE...