Rossana Scebba - Bridging Data Science and Intellectual History

Rossana Scebba

soutiendra publiquement sa dissertation

Bridging Data Science and Intellectual History: 

Knowledge Networks in and around the Old University of Louvain (1425-1797)

pour l'obtention du grade de Doctorat en sciences économiques et de gestion

le lundi 21 septembre

à 10h

au Justus Lipsiuszaal (KULeuven)

Thèse réalisée sous l’accord de cotutelle et de double diplôme entre l’UCLouvain et la KULeuven

Abstract 

This doctoral dissertation studies early modern scholarly communities through the lens of networks: academic networks on the one hand, and publishing networks on the other. It sits at the intersection of computational history and quantitative economic history, and attempts to operate a synthesis between the two disciplinary approaches. The Old University of Louvain (1425-1797) serves as both the anchoring case study and the point of departure for for a wider regional and European inquiry. Using a novel infrastructure combining historical data on academic scholars and library catalogs spanning almost three centuries, the dissertation develops five chapters investigating the overarching question of how was knowledge production in premodern Europe organized through the interaction of shared affiliation and material networks. Chapters 1 and 2 reconstruct the Louvain intellectual network and situate the approach relative to existing traditions in the humanities and in the social sciences. Chapter 3 widens the scope at the European level and uses the affiliation network binding scholars across the continent as the vector for spread of new ideas. Chapter 4 zooms back again on Louvain and uses a comparative approach to study the partnerships and publishing network of five notable printers operating in the city across different time periods. Chapter 5 settles on the region of the historic Low Countries, and tackles a classical economic question, examining whether printers and publishers leaned on accumulated social ties to screen unfamiliar authors, and to what extent this reliance intensified during the institutional disruption that marked the region’s history from the first stirrings of the Reformation onward.

Membres du jury    
Prof. David De la Croix (UCLouvain), promoteur et secrétaire du jury
Prof. Margherita Fantoli (KULeuven), promotrice 
Prof. Violet Soen (KULeuven), co-promotrice
Prof. Maïka Dekeyzer (KULeuven), présidente du jury
Prof. Fabio Mariani (UCLouvain), 
Prof. Mark Depauw (KULeuven), 
Prof Dirk Van Miert (KNAW et Utrecht)
Prof. Romain Wacziarg (UCLA)