Female Involvement, Membership, and Centrality: A Social Network Analysis of the Hartlib Circle

Bourke, Evan

doi:10.1111/lic3.12388

Cited by 21 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…6 In many other studies, historical correspondence has been used as the basis for network construction. 7 Some of the consequential analysis of these datasets rests on network visualisation, which typically takes the form of the 'forcedirected' network diagram. While such diagrams can provide use ful insights for smaller networks they quickly become unhelpful 'hairballs' as the size of the network increases.…”

Section: Historical Network Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

The Measure of the Archive: The Robustness of Network Analysis in Early Modern Correspondence

Ryan¹,

Ahnert²

2021

Journal of Cultural Analytics

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Network analysis of historical correspondence can be a fruitful way to address historical research questions, and has been increasingly used in historical studies over the past decade. As with many areas of quantitative humanities research, the reliability of the results are often called into question, given that such approaches require 'hard data' as input, yet almost inevitably use datasets with partial or missing records. Other disciplines using network analysis have conducted robustness experiments designed to test the impact of data loss or error on their results. In order to test how this missing data might affect our own area of research, we conducted a number of experiments designed to simulate the impact of the kinds of loss often seen in historical correspondence data, including random document loss, missing years, and errors in the disambiguation and deduplication process. The results show that most network centrality measures maintain robustness until a very large proportion of the data (60% or more) is removed. Some measures showed a linear change in robustness, while others remained high and then fell off sharply. Only one, transitivity (local clustering coefficient) was significantly impacted throughout. We tested a range of data loss scenarios (random single letters, folio books of manuscript letters, catalogues, and entire years) and a range of commonlyused network metrics. In addition, we tested the robustness of more complex network analysis results in the literature that combine several network metrics to highlight individuals in the network, and found that the same types of individuals would have likely been highlighted even with 50% random letter loss. Alongside the article is a web application, built using Shiny, which will calculate robustness measures for a user uploaded network dataset. We conclude that researchers working with similar historical correspondence datasets might be able to consider network analysis results to be robust in most cases, rather than work on the assumption that missing data would lead to very different findings or results.The archives that historians work with are filled with traces of damaged, lost, and destroyed letters, which, had they survived, might have profoundly changed established historical narratives. Sometimes these archival gaps are created dur ing the lifetime of the individual in question: fleeing persecution in Catholicrun Bohemia, the theologian, pedagogue and minister Jan Comenius took refuge in

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Section: Historical Network Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

The Measure of the Archive: The Robustness of Network Analysis in Early Modern Correspondence

Ryan¹,

Ahnert²

2021

Journal of Cultural Analytics

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“…Within social network analysis, the subfield of historical network research is rapidly expanding ( Jockers 2013;Burkhardt 2014;Ahnert andAhnert 2015, 2019;van den Heuvel 2015;Ahnert 2016;Deicke 2017;van den Heuvel et al 2017;van Vugt 2017;McShane 2018;Wurpts et al 2018). 4 However, very little has been done to explore early modern philosophical and scientific networks in particular (see exceptions in Lux and Cook [1998], van den Heuvel et al [2016], and Bourke [2017]).…”

Section: Canonical and Noncanonical Authorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A few studies have been done on historical scientific communities and on early modern literary networks (Gingras 2010;Valleriani 2017). So far, only one study has focused on the role of women in an early modern network associated with prominent natural philosophers (Bourke 2017). Our study uses well-tested approaches and tools that have proved to be successful in previous research on the specific object of investigation of early modern natural philosophy.…”

Section: Canonicity Centrality Measures and The Potential For Interactionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Divide et Impera: Modeling the Relationship between Canonical and Noncanonical Authors in the Early Modern Natural Philosophy Network

Sangiacomo¹,

Beers²

2020

HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History

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This article aims to study the relationship between today's canonical and noncanonical authors in the domain of early modern natural philosophy through the lens of social network analysis. By studying a massive corpus of letters (Electronic Enlightenment project), we examine the structural relationship between several of today's canonical authors in natural philosophy and noncanonical women philosophers operating in the same network. We demonstrate the structure of this network and its effects on noncanonical authors. By modeling the case of women philosophers, we show that our model can be used to identify further noncanonical authors who had similar profiles.Quantitative hermeneutics is the art of understanding conventions-forms, genres, styles, practices-better than their society ever did. (F. Moretti, Patterns and Interpretation, Stanford Literary Lab, pamphlet 15 [2017])

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“…4 This dataset was collated by Katharine Simms and is being maintained and updated by Mícheál Hoyne at Trinity College Dublin. 5 Ahnert and Ahnert, 2015;Townend;Bourke;Basu et al;McShane;Van Vugt;Bauer;Yose et al 6 On the MACMORRIS project, see Baker et al, 2018 and2019. map, explore, and draw attention to an under-researched archive for the study of early modern Ireland.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patronage Networks in Gaelic Ireland ca. 1541–ca. 1660

Bourke,

Chárthaigh

2023

Renaiss. Q.

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Bardic poetry in early modern Ireland was the product of highly sophisticated, transactional, and mutually beneficial relationships between poets and their aristocratic patrons. This paper combines innovative methods of network analysis with traditional textual scholarship to visualize and examine these social relationships, which played a role, at both a national and regional level, in maintaining and upholding the values of Gaelic Ireland's elite. Focusing on the period from the declaration of Henry VIII as king of Ireland, in 1541, to the beginning of the Restoration period, in 1660, it highlights and explores an under-studied aspect of Renaissance Ireland.

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Female Involvement, Membership, and Centrality: A Social Network Analysis of the Hartlib Circle

Cited by 21 publications

References 12 publications

The Measure of the Archive: The Robustness of Network Analysis in Early Modern Correspondence

The Measure of the Archive: The Robustness of Network Analysis in Early Modern Correspondence

Divide et Impera: Modeling the Relationship between Canonical and Noncanonical Authors in the Early Modern Natural Philosophy Network

Patronage Networks in Gaelic Ireland ca. 1541–ca. 1660

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Female Involvement, Membership, and Centrality: A Social Network Analysis of the Hartlib Circle

Cited by 21 publications

References 12 publications

The Measure of the Archive: The Ro­bustness of Network Analysis in Early Modern Correspondence

The Measure of the Archive: The Ro­bustness of Network Analysis in Early Modern Correspondence

Divide et Impera: Modeling the Relationship between Canonical and Noncanonical Authors in the Early Modern Natural Philosophy Network

Patronage Networks in Gaelic Ireland ca. 1541–ca. 1660

Contact Info

Product

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The Measure of the Archive: The Robustness of Network Analysis in Early Modern Correspondence

The Measure of the Archive: The Robustness of Network Analysis in Early Modern Correspondence