Meredith says: hello!
Hello! Lovely to meet you all, I hope you’re having a pleasant day and the procrastination hasn’t gotten too far out of hand just yet (how many hours on tumblr now? Just the 5? Don’t worry, this counts as research!). My name’s Meredith and I’m a brand new Research Community Coordinator for Research Platforms.
At the moment I’m in the midst of one of many drafts (and redrafts, and redrafts) of my Masters by Research thesis. Although the question: “so, what’s your thesis on” inspires fear and terror in any researcher’s heart, and has led to the collision of hummus and guacamole with many a well-meaning party-goer’s face, I will attempt to answer this for you now. That’s how much I love you, Research-Platforms-Tumblr-Reader, I love you with all my keyboard. Everyone knows, that’s what true love is.
It (my thesis, not the keyboard-heart metaphor) is on a poem called Aurora Leigh, published in 1856 by a one Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Here she is, looking a tad grumpy:
She had good cause to be back in 1856 - women didn’t have a great time back then, and, not to put too fine a point on it, don’t really now. I am interested in the long history of feminist writing and poetry, which is what drew me to the poem (Aurora Leigh, for those in the back row who nodded off during the last paragraph) in the first place. Here’s a picture of the poem because I hear tumblr works better with pictures:
After reading it (which I highly suggest, though it is quite long), I thought to myself “Why do all the women in this story keep imagining themselves drowning or dissolving?” Answering this key research question has unlocked (get it? key? unlocked? genius) insights into the way that Elizabeth Barrett Browning was continuing the revolutions of Romanticism and demanding liberty for women. There are gems hidden away in this poem that are incredibly relevant today, grab some cheese and a glass of red and I’ll discuss it with you until the cows come home.
“But Meredith!” I hear you interject in a tone of admonishing accusation and thinly veiled contempt “Whatever could possibly bring you to the Research Bazaar? Surely you just sit up there in your ivory tower, reading dusty old poetry books and chuckling away to your half-crazed self?” Well, dear reader, first of all let me thank you for reading this far down the post, and for the attention that your spirited interjection must have demanded.
Let me also tell you that it’s not so much an ivory tower as a crumbling edifice of cost-cutting, casualization and dire employment (or lack thereof) predictions over here in the humanities. It’s also a place where innovation and thought happens to thrive, so of course when I was introduced to the intriguing Research Platforms I was drawn in by curiosity and a vague idea that computers might not be our enemy, but instead offer possibilities.
Research Tools Speed dating was my first taste of Research Platforms. At this event I learnt that - shock! - you don’t need to store all your references in one big Word Doc! I am now a devout Zotero user, and am currently leading workshops on nifty programs like Gephi and Omeka.
Gephi is going to be particularly useful for my research because as long as you or I spend on Facebook and email, Elizabeth Barrett Browning spent writing letters. They can be an absolute joy to read, just try out a quick key-word search in this online database: http://www.browningscorrespondence.com/
Anyway, Gephi is a program that lets you visualise networks until they look like beautiful, lit-up spider webs like this one from the Gephi website:
Gephi is usually used to visualise social networks, gathering data from facebook, twitter, instagram, tumblr and the like. My big idea, which seems really quite obvious now, is that social networks have been going on for a lot longer than we’ve had this crazy thing called the internet - and EBB’s prolific letter writing is just one example of that. Here’s a lovely painting from about that time by Jean-Baptiste Greuze titled The Letter Writer (I think it’s from 1800 or 1806, but if any of my art history friends wish to correct me on that I’d welcome the input!):
Ah, the ancient art of the nip slip… anyway, during the Romantic and Victorian eras letter writing, exchanges of calling cards, and other social networks skyrocketed and I think Gephi could be a great program to help researchers figure them out. It can also be used to map the social networks created within stories, like this one about the characters in James Joyce’s Ulysses (you’re better to view it on the author’s blog, along with handy hints on visualizing networks with Gephi http://literaturegeek.com/2013/09/09/bloomsday2013results/ ):
I’m also beginning to learn Omeka, which is a program that allows users to create digital archives or exhibitions. It’s particularly useful for museums and galleries to display lots of artifacts, documents and artworks. Put it this way: if Indiana Jones had Omeka, he could have just uploaded the Cross of Coronado into his Omeka exhibition and it all would have been fine.
And on that somewhat rambling note, I’m off to enjoy this sunny Friday afternoon. It’s been fun, oh my dearest Tumblr-Reader, and for you to have made it all the way to the end! You have a special place in my heart. Feel free to drop me a line and chat about poetry, Gephi, Omeka or whatever pops into the lovely mind of yours. Bye!
