Summer 2022
Panic and Pandemic
This project examines discourses on epidemic disease against the history of outbreaks in early modern Europe, with case studies on Germany, England, and France. Using online databases, we analyze metadata of early modern publications for themes related to epidemic disease and compare these occurrences with historical reports of plague outbreaks. We also bring this data together with additional indices such as persecution (witch-hunting, antisemitism, and religious strife) and climatological variation. For example, in our German case studies, data streams on outbreaks are combined with structural data on the relative centrality of German cities, allowing us to model the impact of centrality on epidemic disease as well as the discourses which preserve its historical traces. Such models will allow the visualization, examination, and testing of different hypotheses about the role of environmental and social stress in the dynamics of panic and persecution.
Project Members
Project Member
Designation
ORCID
Laura Stokes
Associate Professor of History and Project Lead
Niloufar Davis
Undergraduate Researcher - Summer, 2022
Language and Plague
As an intern on the ‘Panic and Pandemic’ research project, my work consisted of two tasks. First, I translated a German dataset recording instances of plague outbreaks in Germany in the 15th and 16th centuries. Second, I produced data visualizations of the relationship between plague outbreaks and their most commonly-associated words.
Methods
To ensure that the data I was using to carry out textual analysis was as comprehensive as possible, I first updated the entries of plague in our database by using different words to find entries on plague in German texts of the era. For example, the prior database entries had been found using the keyword entry ‘Pest’ and ‘Pestilenz,’ German words for ‘plague’. However, I thought I might find more entries if I used the words ‘Krankheit’ (sickness) and ‘erkrant’ (to fall ill), read the entries, and then determine if they were likely referring to the plague. To do this, I used Gateway-Bayern.de, an archival website affiliated with the Bavarian Directory. After updating the database, I then turned to translating the hundreds of entries in our database. This posed some challenges because automated transcription and translation services, such as Transkribus, were not particularly accurate. Therefore, I manually translated the entries in Word.
Once I had finished translating the entries, I created .csv files in order to input them into Palladio, a Stanford-made data visualization software. I used this software to create the graphs seen below. Data entry was particularly helpful because it enabled me to develop a conceptual understanding of periods of particularly high fear, intolerance, or suffering. Using these data, I was able to develop word and phrase bubbles that revealed words associated more frequently with ‘Pestilenz’. Interestingly, the words ‘Krieg’ (war), ‘Schaden’ (damage), ‘gefährlich’ (dangerous), ‘heimlich’ (secretive), and ‘sterben’ (dying) were more often associated with ‘plague’ than any religious terms. This may suggest that people feared the physical realities of plagues more than the possibility that they were divine punishment. Furthermore, the words for Christ and Christians (‘Christus’ and ‘Christen’) are on the outermost ring of words, suggesting they were least frequently used when discussing plagues and, by extension, that people associated ‘plague’ more with war than with God. Strikingly, the phrases placed closest to each other all reference medicine, doctors, or healing in some way, suggesting that doctors occupied a relatively powerful position during plague-ridden years.
