Particular Webs:Middlemarch,Typologies, and Digital Studies of Women's Lives

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Booth
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
Network Analysis ◽  
George Eliot ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Feminist Criticism ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Victorian Studies ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
Digital Studies ◽  
Digital Research

[H]e was enamoured of that arduous invention which is the very eye of research, provisionally framing its object and correcting it to more and more exactness of relation … to pierce the obscurity of those minute processes.—George Eliot,MiddlemarchIt would be hard to discover a theoretical or aesthetic approach to George Eliot'sMiddlemarchthat is not already anticipated in some way by the novel's sagacious narrator. Possibly that persona, the quintessential Victorian polymath, does not foresee digital humanities as we know it. But critics have been struck as much by Eliot's prototyping of information systems, semiotics, and network analysis as by her humanist ethics. Casaubon does not invent the database of myths any more than Lydgate discovers DNA, or than Marian Evans Lewes rivals Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage. As I illustrate a kind of digital research that adjusts to the minute particulars of narrative, I hope to keep sight of historical distances between the 1830s, the 1870s, and the era of feminist Victorian studies that I sketch here. Lydgate's penetrative “invention,” in the epigraph, is associated elsewhere in the novel with his actual “flesh-and-blood” vitality: “He cared not only for ‘cases,’ but for John and Elizabeth, especially Elizabeth” (Middlemarch, chap. 15). He is as dedicated to evidence as the narrator, in many scientific analogies, counsels readers to be, and yet he approaches his own life story and the characters of women with a kind of prejudgment that filters out most data. Eliot's readers, seeing Lydgate's errors, are flattered into believing we miss no signals and see all analogies. Can contemporary readers appreciate both numerical cases and individual stories of women? In this article I try to outline a feminist criticism that encompasses both typological classifications and flesh-and-blood individuality, both digital research and interpretative advocacy.

Hegel, Derrida, George Eliot, and the novel

1989 ◽  
Vol 1 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 59-68
Author(s):  
Gerhard Joseph
Keyword(s):  
George Eliot ◽  
The Novel

Rīgas humānistu motīvs Roalda Dobrovenska romānā „Magnus, dāņu princis”

2021 ◽  
pp. 172-180
Author(s):  
Ausma Cimdiņa
Keyword(s):  
Life Story ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Human Society ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Russian State ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Role

The novel “Magnus, the Danish Prince” by the Russian diaspora in Latvia writer Roald Dobrovensky is seen as a specific example of a biographical and historical genre, which embodies the historical experience of different eras and nations in the confrontation of globalisation and national self-determination. At the heart of the novel are the Livonian War and the historical role and human destiny of Magnus (1540–1683) – the Danish prince of the Oldenburg dynasty, the first and the only king of Livonia. The motif of Riga’s humanists is seen both as one of the main ideological driving forces of the novel and as a marginal reflection in Magnus’s life story. Acknowledged historical sources have been used in the creation of the novel: Baltazar Rusov’s “Livonian Chronicle”; Nikolai Karamzin’s “History of the Russian State”; Alexander Janov’s “Russia: 1462–1584. The Beginning of the Tragedy. Notes of the Nature and Formation of Russian Statehood” etc. In connection with the concept of Riga humanists, another fictitious document created by the writer Dobrovensky himself is especially important, namely, the diary of Johann Birke – Magnus’s interpreter, a person with a double identity, “half-Latvian”, “half-German”. It is a message of an alternative to the well-known historical documents, which allows to turn the Livonian historical narrative in the direction of “letocentrism” and raises the issue of the ethnic identity of Riga’s humanists. Along with the deconstruction of the historically documented image of Livonian King Magnus, the thematic structure of the novel is dominated by identity aspects related to the Livonian historical narrative. Dobrovensky, with his novel, raises an important question – what does the medieval Livonia, Europe’s common intellectual heritage, mean for contemporary Latvia and the human society at large? Dobrovensky’s work is also a significant challenge in strengthening emotional ties with Livonia (which were weakened in the early stages of national historiography due to conflicts over the founding of nation-states).

scholarly journals Introduction

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-4
Author(s):  
Talia Schaffer
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Feminist Criticism ◽  
First Century ◽  
Domestic Fiction ◽  
Victorian Women ◽  
Fortieth Anniversary ◽  
Thirtieth Anniversary ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
History Of ◽  
Continuous Work

In May 2017, the annual City University of New York (CUNY) Victorian Conference addressed the history of Victorian feminist criticism. Our conference coincided with the fortieth anniversary of A Literature of Their Own and the thirtieth anniversary of Desire and Domestic Fiction, affording us a chance to think about the legacy of these groundbreaking texts. Elaine Showalter, Martha Vicinus, and Nancy Armstrong spoke about their struggles to establish and maintain Victorian feminist work in the twentieth century, often against outright hostility. We also heard about issues in twenty-first-century Victorian feminist practice: Alison Booth spoke about digital-humanities codification of Victorian women's lives, Jill Ehnenn discussed queer revisions, and Maia McAleavey explored new theories of relationality, while I gave a response to Armstrong's talk. Meanwhile, Carolyn Oulton's discussion of the ongoing struggle to canonize Victorian women writers spoke to the continuous work required to make Victorian women's writing familiar to the field. It was an emotional day, for we all recognized that this might be one of the last times that the founding generation could be together to share these stories.

Using Network Analysis and Visualization to Analyze Problematic Enterprise Information Systems

2013 ◽  
pp. 291-310
Author(s):  
David Greenwood ◽  
Ian Sommerville
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
Network Analysis ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Analytical Techniques ◽  
Enterprise Information ◽  
Enterprise Information Systems ◽  
Complex Information ◽  
Or Groups ◽  
Technical Issues

Society is demanding larger and more complex information systems to support increasingly complex and critical organisational work. Whilst troubleshooting socio-technical issues in small-to-medium scale situations may be achievable using approaches such as ethnography, troubleshooting enterprise scale situations is an open research question because of the overwhelming number of socio-technical elements and interactions involved. This paper demonstrates proof-of-concept tools for network analysis and visualisation that may provide a promising avenue for identifying problematic elements and interactions among an overwhelming number of socio-technical elements. The findings indicate that computers may be used to aid the analysis of problematic large-scale complex socio-technical situations by using analytical techniques to highlighting elements, or groups of interacting elements, that are important to the overall outcome of a problematic situation.

Competitive Advantage

2015 ◽  
pp. 195-210
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
Small Business ◽  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
Knowledge Acquisition ◽  
Customer Orientation ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Improve Performance ◽  
Internal Resources ◽  
External Knowledge ◽  
Management Knowledge

If a small business is going to survive it must be competitive. Internally, efficient operations will contribute to lower costs. A positive environment will allow employees to gain and apply the necessary skills. Management knowledge of information systems will provide leadership. Externally, the establishment of knowledge acquisition networks will facilitate the novel use of information systems. This chapter discusses how a strategy which integrates all of the small business resources, especially those related to information systems, will improve performance. An overall customer orientation applying internal resources and accessing external knowledge will contribute to competitive advantage.

Shankar Nana, Parubai, and the Author, Dinkar Shankar Sawarkar

2019 ◽  
pp. 39-60
Author(s):  
Deepra Dandekar
Keyword(s):  
Life Stories ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
Church Missionary Society

This chapter presents the life story of the first converts Shankar Nana, his wife Parubai, and the author of the novel, Dinkar Shankar Sawarkar, their son. The life stories are based on Christian witnesses, Church Missionary Society archival records, and the Marathi Christian literature of the time that provided protagonists in the novel human agency. This chapter is important for its narrative that lies outside missionary discourse and the native Christian interest that seeks to justify conversion. Based on archival records, this chapter then constitutes the ‘other’ of the translated text.

scholarly journals Health as Experience: Exploring Health in Daily Life Drawing From the Work of Aaron Antonovsky and John Dewey

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (7) ◽  
pp. 1004-1018
Author(s):  
Ninitha Maivorsdotter ◽  
Joacim Andersson
Keyword(s):  
Life Story ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Personal Life ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Narrative Approaches ◽  
Good Living ◽  
A Chain ◽  
Aaron Antonovsky

Research has pursued salutogenic and narrative approaches to deal with questions about how everyday settings are constitutive for different health practices. Healthy behavior is not a distinguishable action, but a chain of activities, often embedded in other social practices. In this article, we have endeavored to describe such a chain of activities guided by the salutogenic claim of exploring the good living argued by McCuaig and Quennerstedt. We use biographical material written by Karl Ove Knausgaard who has created a life story entitled My Struggle. The novel is selected upon an approach influenced by Brinkmann who stresses that literature can be seen as a qualitative social inquiry in which the novelist is an expert in transforming personal life experiences into common human expressions of life. The study illustrates how research with a broader notion of health can convey experiences of health, thereby complementing (and sometimes challenging) public health evidence.

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