ABSTRACT
Modelling is often seen as a core practice of digital humanities (DH). In the last decades of DH it has been understood in the light of computer science as well as connected to modelling traditions in the humanities and social sciences. The last years of interdisciplinary research developing a semiotics and intermediality-based understanding of modelling has linked it closer to the history of analogy, scientific visualisations, and modelling in the humanities. The link to early modern (natural) philosophy has connected this to the use of metaphors in modelling, whereas the practice tradition of DH connects to operationalisation and the computer-based materiality of models.
While models can be of many types, conceptually as well as in their material modalities, networks play a special role in DH, not the least due to the importance of their simpler special cases: trees. In this chapter experience from working with models across the field, from development of larger and smaller computer system via teaching to research will be brought together to identify common practice based patterns, with a focus on networks/graphs as a broad organisational principle. This will be used to identify commonalities in how we do things across the field, to be considered both in practical DH work and for a deeper theoretical understanding of our practices.”
