DIGITal ENcyclopedia of European Sociability

Project Information

DIGITENS

Grant agreement ID: 823862

DOI

10.3030/823862

Project closed

EC signature date 7 November 2018

Start date 1 January 2019

End date 31 December 2022

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 299 000,00

EU contribution

€ 299 000,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITE DE BREST
France

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - DIGITENS (DIGITal ENcyclopedia of European Sociability)

Reporting period: 2021-01-01 to 2022-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

At a time when the idea of Europe is being overshadowed by particularisms and nationalisms, reflecting on the way models, objects and practices of sociability travelled from one culture to the other, were appropriated or resisted, re-emerged in different forms and enriched the culture of societies will enable us to consider the formation and development of a European social public space through a radically new and innovative lens, that of sociability. The research work which has already been developed since 2009 by the GRISOL team (Groupe de Recherche sur la Sociabilité des Lumières) and the GIS Sociability has mostly focused on the cultural transfers between France and Britain. Yet the DIGITENS project aims at broadening the scope of the research work to other European and colonial cultures. By building a team of European and Canadian scholars, specialized in the field of eighteenth- and nineteenth century social interaction and cultural transfers, the DIGITENS project will examine the “particularities” of European models of sociability in various fields (politics, science, medicine, art, politics, travel writing, anthropology …).
The purpose of the DIGITENS project is thus to build an original framework for understanding the interactions, tensions, limits and paradoxes underlying European models of sociability. The results of this collaborative, international and intersectoral research will be published in the first open-access digital encyclopaedia on sociability with a complementary anthology of primary sources.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Sixty-five periods of secondment, involving scholars, digital experts and curators have been scheduled over four years (2019-2022). The academic and non-academic partners have been specifically chosen for their diverse range of expertise and skills (linguistics, social history, biographical studies, local geography, philosophy, politics, literature and art, quantitative network analysis), to guarantee the quality of the research project. These research periods will allow scholars to team up with curators and digital experts to explore and analyze collections of manuscripts, engravings, objects, … The project team will compile an anthology of primary sources (including manuscripts and printed material: political, scientific, philosophical texts, treatises of politeness, newspapers and magazines, travel narratives, correspondences, literary and iconographic works) from materials held by the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Musée Cognacq-Jay, The National Archives and the McGill library and with the assistance of curators and digital experts, as well as existing resources included in databases such as Eighteenth-Century Collections Online (ECCO), Early English Books Online (EEBO) and Electronic Enlightenment. Researchers will thus be able to access digitized documents but more importantly unpublished and non-digitized resources. Part of these resources will be digitized and made available on the DIGITENS encyclopedia.
Each seconded member will contribute two entries to the DIGITENS encyclopedia related to one of the five categories that have been defined. For each entry, keywords and images will be added to develop the connections between the entries.
In addition to the secondment plan, an ambitious program of scientific and communication events has been devised by the scientific committee including international symposiums (in Brest, Paris, London, Montreal, Pescara), workshops at the BnF and TNA, seminars and talks in partnership with TNA and the Musée Cognacq-Jay The conference papers will in turn feed the collective volumes that are part of the deliverables but also new publications and podcasts. Podcasts from the GIS cycles of talks will indeed be posted on the DIGITENS websites.
Digital training is another important aspect of the project; courses, conferences on digital humanities and training sessions have been scheduled in the program to train scholars in text recognition, semantic enrichment, statistical modeling ...
A rich program of varied events will enable the DIGITENS team to communicate on the project and reach a larger public: the Fête de la Science and the Nuit des Chercheurs, among other public engagement activities. The DIGITENS project will also communicate through library events and talks delivered to the general public at TNA and BnF. A website and a twitter account have been created to keep the public updated and to communicate efficiently through social networks. Various teasers have been made to present to the general public objects and practices of sociability and how they relate to our time and to explain the general purpose and the methodology of the DIGITENS project.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Until now, the main areas of study in eighteenth-century sociability have been focused on manners, taste and politeness, rather than on the broader term of sociability. Furthermore, the state of the art has adopted a national approach, concentrating mostly on the development of a national sentiment and sense of belonging. To expand the current state of the art and open up new lines of investigation, the term sociability will be used to address the often forgotten area of relationships and social movements, encompassing a sociological approach to the long eighteenth-century studies. The research material to be studied throughout the DIGITENS project will privilege transnational relationships through commerce, epistolary practices, theatre, touring, … to understand the circulation and transfer of cultural and social practices and objects throughout Europe. A specific attention will be devoted to periods of crisis, revolutions and geopolitical tensions which raised new opportunities for men and women to develop original models ms of sociability. The research methodology and the intersectoral collaborations involving museums, libraries and archives will also favor the use of a great variety of materials and sources (manuscripts, engravings, furniture, painting, objects, …) that will be connected together thanks to the ISILEX digital tool of the encyclopedia.

The key challenge of the digital encyclopaedia lies in the construction of a cartography of knowledge on British and European Sociabilities, and the circulation of models in Europe and throughout the world. Bringing together scholarship from different disciplinary and national traditions, combined with a variety of materials and sources, will create an innovative and unique picture of the long eighteenth-century sociability, overcoming cultural barriers.

Visual used for kick-off meeting

Logo of project