Syllabus

Instructor: Jessica Otis, jotis2@gmu.edu

Learning Outcomes:

You should walk away from this course with the following knowledge:
- What the underlying mathematical concepts in a network are
- How to format humanities data for network analysis
- How to visualize networks in order to convey a narrative argument
- How to quantitatively analyze and interpret network structures

Preparation for the Course:

To follow along complete with the course activities, you will want to install Gephi. You can find the free download at https://gephi.org. Gephi can be finicky but if you have trouble with the software, there are online tutorials and guides for fixing whatever problems you encounter.

Recommeded Readings:

1. Ruth Ahnert, Sebastian E. Ahnert, Catherine Nicole Coleman, and Scott Weingart, The Network Turn: Changing Perspectives in the Humanities (Cambridge: Cambridge Elements, 2021), https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/network-turn/CC38F2EA9F51A6D1AFCB7E005218BBE5.
2. Something from the Journal of Historical Network Research, https://jhnr.uni.lu/index.php/jhnr/issue/archive

Schedule: Full playlist on YouTube

• Video #1: Basic Concepts, Part 1
• Exercise #1: Bridges of Königsberg
• Video #2: Basic Concepts, Part 2
• Exercise #2: Conference Travel Network
• Video #3: Varieties of Networks
• Exercise #3: Conceptualize Your Own Network
• Video #4: Structuring Data for Networks
• Exercise #4: Format Your Network Data
• NEH Grant Termination Video
• Video #5: Visualizing Networks
• Video #6: Network Metrics
• Video #7: Networks Over Time and Space

Additional Reading Options

Books:

• Joad Raymond and Noah Moaxham, eds, News Networks in Early Modern Europe (Brill: 2016), https://brill.com/abstract/title/26263

• Ruth Ahnert and Sebastian E. Ahnert, *Tudor Networks of Power *(Oxford 2024), https://global.oup.com/academic/product/tudor-networks-of-power-9780198858973?cc=us&lang=en& 

Articles:

• Ruth Ahnert and Sebastian E. Ahnert, “Metadata, Surveillance and the Tudor State,” History Workshop Journal (2019), https://doi.org/10.1093/hwk/dby033

• Ruth Ahnert and Sebastian E. Ahnert, “Protestant Letter Networks in the Reign of Mary I: A Quantitative Approach,” ELH 82, no. 1 (2015): 1-33, https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/10170

• Melanie Conroy, “Networks, Maps, and Time: Visualizing Historical Networks Using Palladio,” Digital Humanities Quarterly 15 no. 1 (2021), http://digitalhumanities.org:8081/dhq/vol/15/1/000534/000534.html

• Kimmo Elo, “A Text Network Analysis of Discursive Changes in German, Austrian and Swiss New Year’s Speeches 2000-2021,” Digital Humanities Quarterly 16 no. 1 (2022), http://digitalhumanities.org:8081/dhq/vol/16/1/000598/000598.html

• Florian Krautli and Matteo Valleriani, “CorpusTracer: A CIDOC Database for Tracing Knowledge Networks,” Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 33, no. 2 (2018): 336-346, https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqx047

• Alison Langmead, et. al “Network Analysis + Digital Art History. A Roundtable on a Collective Scholarly Experience,” International Journal for Digital Art History, May 3, 2024, https://dahj.org/article/network-analysis

• James Lee and Jason Lee, “Shakespeare’s Tragic Social Network; or Why All the World’s a Stage,” Digital Humanities Quarterly 11, no. 2 (2017), http://digitalhumanities.org:8081/dhq/vol/11/2/000289/000289.html

• Jessica Marie Otis, “Republic of Tweets,” in The Changing Shape of Digital Early Modern Studies, ed. by Randa El Khatib and Caroline Winter (Chicago: Iter and the University of Chicago Press, 2025).

• Matteo Romanello, “Exploring Citation Networks to Study Intertextuality in Classics,” Digital Humanities Quarterly 10, no. 2 (2016), http://digitalhumanities.org:8081/dhq/vol/10/2/000255/000255.html

• Claire Ruegg and James Jaehoon Lee, “Epic Social Networks and Eve’s Centrality in Milton’s Paradise Lost,” Digital Scholarship in the Humanities (2019), https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqz001

Digital Projects:

• Cristina Pattuelli, “Linked Jazz,” https://linkedjazz.org/network/

• Walter Scheidel, Elijah Meeks, et al, “ORBIS: The Stanford Geospatial Network Model fo the Roman World,” http://orbis.stanford.edu

• Christopher Warren, Daniel Shore, et al., “Six Degrees of Francis Bacon,” http://sixdegreesoffrancisbacon.com