Tudor Networks of Power: A Digital Humanities Approach

Ruth and Sebastian will be talking about their new book, Tudor Networks of Power (OUP, 2023), which brings together their respective research expertise in Tudor literary culture and network science. Together they have reconstructed and computationally analysed the networks of intelligence, diplomacy, and political influence across a century of Tudor history (1509-1603), based on the British State Papers. The 130,000 letters that survive in the State Papers from the Tudor period provide crucial information about the textual organisation of the social network centred on the Tudor government. Whole libraries have been written using this archive, but until now nobody has had access to the macroscopic tools that allow us to ask questions such as: What are the reasons for the structure of the Tudor government's intelligence network? What was it geographical reach and coverage? Can we use network data to show patterns of surveillance? What role did women play in these government networks? And what biases are there in the data? Ruth and Sebastian will discuss a range of computational methods that can help to ask and answer research questions specific to the State Papers archive, as well as offering opportunities for other large bodies of humanities data.

Zoom details:

https://durhamuniversity.zoom.us/j/92687258119?pwd=d1VOeXNYN2E3U1RXY1R0TkJNeU1tUT09

Meeting ID: 926 8725 8119

Passcode: 898197

Please contact Dr Laura McKormick Kilbride (laura.mccormick-kilbride@durham.ac.uk) or Dr Fraser Riddell (f.i.riddell@durham.ac.uk) if you have any questions.