Global Literary Networks A Faculty Research Initiative of the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society

Literature, Networks, Media, World Why Modernism? Avant-garde; Bodies in Motion; Fragmentation; Rapid Spread of Ideas; Polemics; Restructuring of Artistic Fields; Institutional Shifts and Professionalization Why Modernist Poetry? Obsession with Medium; Mixing of Forms; Make it New!; Mass Communication; Participation and Access; Language as Object Why Little Magazines? Media Networks; Mass Mediated Sociality; Signaling Connectedness; Publicity; Branding; Citationality; Curating Information Why Artistic Circles? Collaboration; Factionalism; Competition; Communities of Discourse; Distinction; Community in Process Why Global?

Topics of Investigation Artistic Collaboration Sociology of Art; Artistic Circles; Collaboration and Innovation Literary Diffusion Diffusion of Ideas/Style; Literary Memes; Transnational Markets; Signaling Social Position Network Position and Network Effects; Metrics; Rules of Inclusion/Exclusion Group Dynamics Changing Relations over Time; Durability of Connection; Layered Sociality Comparative Social Structure Comparative Network Morphology

Methodological Questions What are the best ways to integrate traditional modes of literary criticism with “big data” approaches? How should we introduce quantitative reasoning and modeling into humanist explanatory models, which typically rely on isolated examples? How do we convince colleagues of the merits of this scholarship? Is it possible to do so without alienating key allies in the field? How do we make our work legible across disciplines? How much retraining in quantitative and computational methods is right for a project like this one? When should we lean on colleagues in the sciences and when should we learn on our own?

Where We Are Now United States: Bibliographic metadata for 30,000 poems published between 1915 and 1930 in a variety of periodicals, newspapers, and literary magazines. Full text of Poetry Magazine (1912-1940), and an expanding corpus pulled from Brown MJP project. Japan: Metadata for 100,000 poems, essays, and translations between 1920 and 1944 in 160+ literary magazines and modernist journals. Over 4,000 poets represented. Little digitization of texts. China: Metadata for 90,000 items published from 1911 to 1949 in literary journals. Currently involved in pilot program with Shanghai Library to produce full-text corpus of these journals. Latin America: Nearly 2,000 poems published by 660 poets in eight journals (mostly Cuba and Argentina). Records span the years 1921 to 1941. Will soon be digitizing and running OCR on these journals to obtain full text.

Case Studies Who is Thomas Curtis Clark? Modernist Networks, Rules of Exclusion (Richard) Translation Networks in the World Republic of Letters (Hoyt) Intra-Regional Networks in Latin America (Tom)

Where We Want to Go Workshop Goals: 1) Discuss how to make this work legible to scholars in modernism, comparative literature, digital humanities, and social sciences. 2) Develop SNA metrics and techniques that better help us explore our core themes. What kinds of (and how much) visualization will actually be useful? How can we better leverage SNA metrics? What kinds of statistical models should we be developing? Will random models or agent-based modeling be of use? 3) Discuss best practices for creating, managing, and giving access to our datasets. Brainstorm future platforms and tools with an emphasis on functionality and flexibility. 4) Generate 5 new case studies and article ideas. 5) Generate a 3-year plan for infrastructure, training, and funding 6) Global Literary Networks (our collaborative book project)