Is anybody familiar with literature that is combining theory of history with computational/digital methods?

by Sarp14

Does anybody knows for works (articles, books) that are trying to combine theoretical perspectives and problems of historiography, with methods and theoris of computational social science/digital humanities? I am thinking along the lines of methods like natural language processing, social network analysis or agent based modeling. For example using computer simulations (agent based modeling) to test counterfactual hypothesis about some historical event or process.

Morricane

I'm not certain what exactly you are looking for: articles and books, both discussing method and applying such methodology, tend to have a section on methodology. But "theory of history" (or metahistory) typically discusses history in much more abstract means: the historical method is arguably not much more than the operational trinity of heuristics-criticism-interpretation; the specific actions involved in performing these operations may utilize supplementary methods; therefore, quite like social-scientific quantitative methods, SNA etc. can be utilized as a concrete method for criticizing data (facts), and for the creation of what Jörn Rüsen calls "aggregate facts" (facts resulting from syntheses of singular data points) within this operative framework (1).

Especially SNA, which is the only one I am somewhat familiar with of the methods you mentioned, has found rather widespread usage in historical studies, where it usually is termed "Historical Network Analysis." That such an adaption of method requires modification may be a given (and what interests you, I presume); especially the issue of incomplete datasets, which is endemic for history, reduces the possibility of accuracy that is typically required of a reliable network diagram (2). A classic paper on SNA in history is 2011's "Formal Network Methods in History: Why and How?" by Claire Lemercier, which nowadays is published open access here. Likewise, a substantial bibliography of both theoretical essays and historical studies utilizing network analysis can be found at The Historical Network Research Community.

I fear I'm not being of much help, but perhaps there's at least a starting point given for one aspect of your question!

Notes:

(1) Jörn Rüsen, Historik: Theorie der Geschichtswissenschaft (Köln, Weimar, Wien: Böhlau, 2013), 182-183.

(2) This is definitely discussed in a paper in the book Handbuch Historische Netzwerkforschung: Grundlagen und Anwendungen, ed. Marten Düring, Ulrich Eumann, and Martin Stark (Münster, Hamburg, Berlin, Wien, London: LIT Verlag, 2016), but I don't have access to the book anymore, and unfortunately my notes from the time when I read it seem to have disappeared from my hard drive.

momomoca

Hey! This is my field! I was curious if anyone had asked about this before here in r/AskHistorians so I did a search and your answer popped up :)

Did you ever find the resources you need or would you still like some help?