Data Visualization in Enlightenment Literature and Culture

Placed at the intersection of the digital humanities and Enlightenment studies, this collection is an interdisciplinary effort that showcases the significant digital work done in the field of eighteenth-century studies and its potential to transform our disciplinary practices. By addressing essential period-related themes—from issues of canonicity, intellectual history, and book trade practices to novel ways of exploring canonical authors and texts, gender roles, and public sphere dynamics—this collection also makes a broader argument about the necessity of expanding the very notion of “Enlightenment” not only spatially but also conceptually, by revisiting its very tenets in light of new data. The essays included here demonstrate that, by translating these new findings in suggestive visualizations, we can unveil unforeseen patterns, trends, connections, or networks of influence that could potentially revise existing master narratives about the period and the ideological structures at the core of the Enlightenment.
Chapters 1, 3, 8 and 10 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.