Description
The full name of the program is “Digital Humanities Approaches to Reference Cultures: The Emergence of the United States in Public Discourse in the Netherlands, 1890-1990.” The program uses digital humanities tools to analyze how the United States has served as a cultural model for the Netherlands in the long twentieth century. Cultural historians, information scientists, and text-mining experts at Utrecht University, the University of Amsterdam and the Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands, in The Hague, will use advanced text mining technologies to address this question.
Reference cultures
USA posThe term “reference culture” is used to describe the dominant role of some cultures in the international exchange of ideas, products and practices. Reference cultures serve as a model that can be imitated, adapted or rejected. Digital technologies such as text mining allows the Translantis program to analyze the role of the United States as a reference culture in Dutch debates about social change and collective identities.
The specific historical dynamics of reference cultures have never been systematically analyzed and hence are not fully understood. This program explores the fundamental concept of reference cultures by asking three related questions.
How were ideas, products and practices associated with the United States valued in Dutch public discourse between 1890 and 1990?
How can e-tools be used to map trends and changes in relation to the economic power, cultural acceptance, and scientific and technological impact of the United States as a reference culture?
How does public discourse reflect and influence the emergence and impact of reference cultures?