Mapping Knowledge Exchange in Early Modern Europe: Intellectual and Technological Geographies and Network Representations

TY - JOUR

T1 - Mapping Knowledge Exchange in Early Modern Europe

T2 - Intellectual and Technological Geographies and Network Representations

AU - van den Heuvel, C.M.J.M.

N1 - 2014 volume, but will be published in Spring 2015

PY - 2015

Y1 - 2015

N2 - This paper discusses the development of digital intellectual and technological geographies showing spatial distributions of information and proposes to combine these with network representations of actors and documents relevant for the history knowledge exchange in Early Modern Europe. The amount of technical and fortification drawings that were copied throughout Europe and the New World and the different nature of networks in which they were exchanged raises the question whether they belonged the Republic of Letters, as some authors claim. We argue that instead of trying to explain knowledge exchange in Early Modern Europe by focusing on The Republic of Letters as one entity consisting of scholars, it might be more useful to reconstruct the spatial distribution of actors and of (non-)textual documents in virtual networks of knowledge. Inspired by the term “deep maps” coined by David Bodenhamer, we will introduce the concept of “deep networks” and explore the requirements for their future development. Hereto, we focus on the representation of historical evidence and of uncertainties in analyses of intellectual and technological letters and drawings and hybrid combinations of these.

AB - This paper discusses the development of digital intellectual and technological geographies showing spatial distributions of information and proposes to combine these with network representations of actors and documents relevant for the history knowledge exchange in Early Modern Europe. The amount of technical and fortification drawings that were copied throughout Europe and the New World and the different nature of networks in which they were exchanged raises the question whether they belonged the Republic of Letters, as some authors claim. We argue that instead of trying to explain knowledge exchange in Early Modern Europe by focusing on The Republic of Letters as one entity consisting of scholars, it might be more useful to reconstruct the spatial distribution of actors and of (non-)textual documents in virtual networks of knowledge. Inspired by the term “deep maps” coined by David Bodenhamer, we will introduce the concept of “deep networks” and explore the requirements for their future development. Hereto, we focus on the representation of historical evidence and of uncertainties in analyses of intellectual and technological letters and drawings and hybrid combinations of these.

KW - Republic of Letters; Circulation of Knowledge; Deep Networks; Intellectual and Technological Geographies; Visualizing Uncertainty

U2 - 10.3366/ijhac.2015.0140

DO - 10.3366/ijhac.2015.0140

M3 - Article

SN - 1753-8548

VL - 9

JO - International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing

JF - International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing

IS - 1

ER -