The historian's craft in digital temporalities : intellectual networks, americanisms, and discipline

• Grant number: 19/14386-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: October 01, 2019
• End date: September 30, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - Theory and Philosophy of History
• Principal Investigator: Thiago Lima Nicodemo
• Grantee: Alesson Ramon Rota
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 22/06242-5 - Technological know-how and document data mining for historians: digitized historical collections and social networks, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

This thesis examines the intellectual network that organized the First and Second International Congresses of the History of the Americas, held in 1922 and 1937. The network generated Americanist ideas aimed at writing a continental history and, through its ties, convenedc onferences, published journal articles, and sponsored book translations that engaged internationally with both disciplinary debates on historiography and contemporary assessments of foreign policy. Conceived as a form of cultural production, politics became a defining featureof this Americanist milieu: its members participated actively in foreign-relations projects that reshaped national agendas and altered the dynamics among actors involved. Tensions between national and international interests emerged within each country's domestic policies amid aclimate of rising authoritarianism, which nonetheless coexisted with liberal and Sovereignty discourses voiced at the International American Conferences. The study's analytical path-tracing the role of intellectuals in forging an intercontinental transnationality through writing of history-was coupled with reflections on the use of computing in historical research. Computational languages were deployed to explore digital collections, from straight for ward mappings to sophisticated meaning-making, employing algorithms that range from basic operations to machine-learning techniques. This trajectory introduces a distinct practice of digital history. By comparing the early-twentieth-century consolidation of the historical discipline with present-day applications of programming languages to historiography, the thesis concludes that, despite novel approaches, digital transformations do not alter the fundamental specificity of writing of history.