Franco Moretti’s ‘Graphs, Maps, Trees’ was a fascinating read; he has developed or expanded upon ways of looking at history which, though often strange at first glance, prove to have very intriguing possibilities. The ability of people to now examine what would have been, until recently, unfeasible volumes of information opens up many potential new paths. Being able to process the data required to accurately chart the evolution of British novelistic genres (pg. 19), or the correlation between human genetic and linguistic development (pg. 71) with any sort of speed necessitates the use of computers; the 10 million Clinton-era White house e-mails mentioned in class can only be effectively analyzed digitally.
Just as with any historical research technique, those presented in Moretti’s book remain vulnerable to being misused or misinterpreted. The map charting the locations of protagonists and the objects of their desire in Parisian novels (pg. 55) is potentially useful, but in and of itself is just a collection of data points; picking out accurate interpretations remains a human task. Similarly, the rise and fall of the novel (pgs. 6-12) appears to have some similarities across national borders, but the existence of actual causal similarities cannot be proven by the charts alone. Nevertheless, Moretti clearly demonstrates the potential of new abstract methods for examining literary history based upon quantitative history, geography, and evolutionary theory. Granted, not every historical researcher will find all of his models equally useful; my personal research style doesn’t really relate all that well to his section on circular narrative space. Despite differences in individual preferences, it is both well written and useful.
I really enjoyed checking out the Time Magazine Corpus of American English. Being able to access close to a century’s worth of a magazine’s writing and search out particular topics or phrases has great research potential, and I can certainly see using this or a similar corpus search system in the final project. I’ve been trying to develop some potential project ideas, and after seeing this system I’m currently thinking about some sort of research into the evolution of racial epithets from common derogatory use to their being viewed by larger society in a negative light.
For example, having talked a great deal with World War II vets, I am very familiar with the ‘jap’ epithet; while not one of the most extreme terms, it is one which has an easily charted developmental history. Using the Time Magazine Corpus, I could see its progression, which proved to be rather illuminating. While the ‘jap’ term underwent an unsurprising jump in popular use following the Pearl Harbor attack, it was used on a number of occasions both before and well after World War II. However, the term’s use long before WWII tended to be as a mildly disparaging identifier, which had more and more negative connotations attached to it as war approached; on the other hand, the term decreased quickly in use (though far slower than the post-Pearl-Harbor jump), and relatively soon was mostly used in quotes from the war itself or from surviving veterans. It’s an interesting find, and one which I intend to examine further.
I think you’ll find “jap” a little trickier to document, actually. Given the clustering of Nisei, Issei, and Kibei almost exclusively on the West Coast and Hawaii prior to WWII, I wouldn’t expect East Coast-based Time magazine to pay much heed to what was then a largely West Coast racial issue.