Network theory, plot analysis

New Left Review

Volumn , Issue 68, 2011, Pages 80-102

  Moretti, Franco ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 79955448456     PISSN: 00286060     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (13)

1. Jean-Baptiste Michel, Erez Lieberman Aiden et al., 'Quantitative Analysis of Culture Using Millions of Digitized Books', Science, December 2010.
2. 'The network structure calculations were obtained by treating each speaking char acter as a vertex, and deeming two characters to be linked if there was at least one time slice of the play in which both were present (that is, if two characters spoke to each other or were in each other's presence, then they have a link)': James Stiller, Daniel Nettle, Robin I. M. Dunbar, 'The small world of Shakespeare's plays', Human Nature, vol. 14, no. 4, 2003, p. 399.
3. Another application of network theory to narrative ('Marvel Universe looks almost like a real social network', by R. Alberich, J. Miro-Julia, F. Rosselló, 11 February 2002, available at arXiv.org) uses a similar premise, by stating that 'two characters are linked when they jointly appear in a signifcant way in the same comic book'; since, however, we are never told what exactly constitutes a 'signifcant' interaction, as opposed to an in-signifcant one, the basis for quantifcation remains fundamentally opaque.
4. Alberich, Miro-Julia and Rosselló, 'Marvel Universe'.
5. Newman, 'The structure and function of complex networks', SIAM Review, vol. 45, no. 2, 2003, p. 183; available on arXiv.org.
6. Alexander Graham Sack, 'Bleak House and Weak Social Networks', unpublished thesis, Columbia University, 2006.
7. The concept of 'weak tie' was frst formulated by Mark Granovetter in 'The Strength of Weak Ties', American Journal of Sociology, vol. 78, no. 6, May 1973.
8. Andrew Plaks, 'The Novel in Premodern China', in Moretti, ed., The Novel, Princeton 2006, vol. I, p. 189.
9. See also Plaks, 'Leaving the Garden', NLR 47.
10. Thomas Gold, Doug Guthrie and David Wank, 'An Introduction to the Study of Guanxi', in Gold, Guthrie and Wank, eds, Social Connections in China: Institutions, Culture, and the Changing Nature of Guanxi, Cambridge 2002, pp. 3, 4, 10.
11. See Gold, Guthrie and Wank, 'Introduction', p. 6.
12. Mayfair Mei-hui Yang, Gifts, Favours and Banquets: The art of social relationships in China, Ithaca, NY 1994, pp. 6, and 125
13. And Andrew Kipnis, 'Practices of guanxi production and practices of ganqing avoidance', in Gold, Guthrie and Wank, Social Connections in China.