C. Edmondson, D. Edelstein (dir.), Networks of Enlightenment: Digital Approaches to the Republic of Letters

Networks of Enlightenment: Digital Approaches to the Republic of Letters

edited by Chloe Edmondson and Dan Edelstein

Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment 2019:06

ISBN: 9781786941961, 320 pages, £65.00

This volume presents a series of case studies of networks in the Republic of Letters. These studies examine correspondence, social, and knowledge networks throughout eighteenth-century Europe, from Russia to Italy and England, with particular focus on France. Drawing on digital methods and Social Network Analysis (SNA), contributors to this volume pioneer new historically driven methods for thinking about networks in early-modern societies.

• The first volume that brings together the work of scholars pioneering digital approaches to the Republic of Letters.
• A volume that elegantly combines traditional humanistic inquiry with innovative digital methods, to offer fresh perspectives on some of the most important issues in eighteenth-century studies.
• This volume provides exemplary models of how social network analysis (SNA) can be adapted for historical research.

Table of Contents:
List of figures and tables

Dan Edelstein and Chloe Summers Edmonson, Introduction: historical network analysis and social groups in the Enlightenment

I. Correspondence networks

Nicholas Cronk, Voltaire’s correspondence network: questions of exploration and interpretation
Kelsey Rubin-Detlev and Andrew Kahn, Catherine the Great and the art of epistolary networking
Cheryl Smeall, ‘He belonged to Europe’: Francesco Algarotti (1712-1764) and his European networks
Pierre-Yves Beaurepaire, The networks and the reputation of an ambitious Republican of Letters: Jacques de Pérard (Paris, 1713-Stettin, 1766)

II. Social networks

Chloe Summers Edmonson, Julie de Lespinasse and the ‘philosophical’ salon
Charlotta Wolff, ‘Un admirateur des philosophes modernes’: the networks of Swedish ambassador Gustav Philip Creutz in Paris, 1766-1783
Maria Teodora Comsa, Casanova’s French networks: transitioning from a backstage coterie to the beau monde

III. Knowledge networks

Melanie Conroy, The eighteenth-century French academic network
Mark Algee-Hewitt, The principles of meaning: networks of knowledge in Johnson’s Dictionary

Summaries
Bibliography
Index

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"At this intersection of Enlightenment historiography, data capture, and social network analysis, the essays in this volume take advantage of new data sources, configurations, and modes of analysis to deepen our understanding of how Enlightenment sociability worked, who it included, and what it meant for participants." (Read Chloe Edmondson’s accompanying blog post)

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Chloe Edmondson is a PhD candidate in the Department of French & Italian at Stanford University. She specializes in French literary and cultural history of the long eighteenth century, with a particular focus on letter-writing practices. Her work in the field of digital humanities has appeared in the Journal of Modern History and Digital Humanities Quarterly.

Dan Edelstein is the William H. Bonsall Professor of French and, by courtesy, History at Stanford University. He is the author, most recently, of On the Spirit of Rights (Chicago, 2018). He is also active in the field of digital humanities, notably through the “Mapping the Republic of Letters” project.

The Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series, previously known as SVEC (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century), has published over 500 peer-reviewed scholarly volumes since 1955 as part of the Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford. International in focus, Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment volumes cover wide-ranging aspects of the eighteenth century and the Enlightenment, from gender studies to political theory, and from economics to visual arts and music, and are published in English or French.