From Networks of Texts to Networks of Topics?: On the Classification of (Texts in) Compilations with a View towards Manuscript Transmission

As medieval manuscripts often consist of more than one text, the application of network analysis can show textual connections between codices and therefore shed light on the circulation of texts, of manuscripts, and thus of knowledge. But a text-based analysis often faces difficulties that result fr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of historical network research
Subtitles:"Special Issue: Networks of Manuscripts, Network of Texts"
Main Author: Serif, Ina (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Université du Luxembourg 2023
In: Journal of historical network research
Year: 2023, Volume: 9, Pages: 184-213
Further subjects:B Medieval Studies
B Jakob Twinger von Königshofen
B digital history
B topic modeling
B shared manuscript transmission
B Manuscripts
Online Access: Volltext (kostenfrei)
Description
Summary:As medieval manuscripts often consist of more than one text, the application of network analysis can show textual connections between codices and therefore shed light on the circulation of texts, of manuscripts, and thus of knowledge. But a text-based analysis often faces difficulties that result from insufficient manuscript descriptions and lacking normalization of work titles. A broader view that would compare not particular texts, but rather genres, areas of interest or fields of knowledge may on the one hand help circumvent these problems, but has to deal, on the other hand, with problems regarding classification. Instead of finding connections between subjectively classified texts, one can make use of topic modeling as a method to computationally classify and hence characterize miscellany manuscripts. On the basis of automatically detected topics, topic-based networks can be generated which help to further investigate the connections between the codices of a specific corpus and to develop a better understanding for the copying and transmission of premodern manuscripts.
ISSN:2535-8863
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of historical network research