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 6 - The Many Windows of the House of the Past
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 discusses the ways that history, as a discipline, is deeply grounded in reflections on temporal experience. Influence and agency, or cause and effect, only scratch the surface of the multiple ways we tell stories about the past. As we reflect upon the past from multiple perspectives, we see that history is far more than a simple story – it is a vast house with many windows. This chapter examines how historical events can be seen as ruptures from the past, or conversely, as repetitions of the past, and how a researcher can separate signal from noise, and discern the truly meaningful historical events. The chapter explores historians’ tools for navigating temporal experience, drawing on recent theoretical work by Stephen Tanaka, Astrid Erll, and Reinhart Koselleck. It suggests that data-driven examinations of history are most effective when modeled to match a perspectival, theory-driven representation of only one of the multiple dimensions of history, and so offers the intellectual foundation for the chapters that follow.
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- Information
- The Dangerous Art of Text MiningA Methodology for Digital History, pp. 161 - 189Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023