Book contents
- The Dangerous Art of Text Mining
- The Dangerous Art of Text Mining
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Toward a Smarter Data Science
- Part II The Hidden Dimensions of Temporal Experience
- Chapter 6 The Many Windows of the House of the Past
- Chapter 7 Of Memory
- Chapter 8 The Distinctiveness of Certain Eras
- Chapter 9 The Measure of Influence
- Chapter 10 The Fit of Algorithms to Temporal Experience
- Chapter 11 Whither Modernity
- Chapter 12 Attacks on Environmentalists in Congress
- Part III Disciplinary Implications
- Appendix: Notes on Data, Code, Labor, Room for Error, and British History
- Index
Chapter 11 - Whither Modernity
from Part II - The Hidden Dimensions of Temporal Experience
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 September 2023
- The Dangerous Art of Text Mining
- The Dangerous Art of Text Mining
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Toward a Smarter Data Science
- Part II The Hidden Dimensions of Temporal Experience
- Chapter 6 The Many Windows of the House of the Past
- Chapter 7 Of Memory
- Chapter 8 The Distinctiveness of Certain Eras
- Chapter 9 The Measure of Influence
- Chapter 10 The Fit of Algorithms to Temporal Experience
- Chapter 11 Whither Modernity
- Chapter 12 Attacks on Environmentalists in Congress
- Part III Disciplinary Implications
- Appendix: Notes on Data, Code, Labor, Room for Error, and British History
- Index
Summary
This chapter examines whether and how it is possible to reckon where modernity is going. While some researchers are tempted to think about the deep past in light of a shared and aspirational future, there are many reasons to be skeptical about doctrines of progress. Even to say with certainty what trends and dynamics animate a given period is never easy – to say when modernity began and what distinguishes it from the past requires a profound grasp of the multiple dimensions of time. Case studies in this chapter test common conceptions of modernity, such as “urbanization” and “empire,” for their rise and fall over a century, demonstrating how different ways of reckoning with the count of words are crucial to interpretation. It asks whether and how algorithms can constitute a tool for determining which forces are “trending” in a culture, and in a given period. Reviewing a case study on Hansard’s parliamentary debates, it explains how different measures of trending can be used to create new insight into how Britain changed over the course of the nineteenth century, highlighting references to a shared future where political rights dominated as one major finding.
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- The Dangerous Art of Text MiningA Methodology for Digital History, pp. 333 - 351Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023