Modeling the Network of Dutch and Flemish Print Production, 1550-1750

The production of artistic prints in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Netherlands was an inherently social process. Turning out prints at any reasonable scale depended on the fluid coordination between designers, platecutters, and publishers; roles that, by the sixteenth century, were considered distinguished enough to merit distinct credits engraved on the plates themselves: invenit, fecit/sculpsit, and excudit. While any one designer, plate cutter, and publisher could potentially exercise a great deal of influence over the production of a single print, their individual decisions (Whom to select as an engraver? What subjects to create for a print design? What market to sell to?) would have been variously constrained or encouraged by their position in this larger network (Who do they already know? And who, in turn, do their contacts know?) This dissertation addresses the impact of these constraints and affordances through the novel application of computational social network analysis to major databases of surviving prints from this period. This approach is used to evaluate several questions about trends in early modern print production practices that have not been satisfactorily addressed by traditional literature based on case studies alone: Did the social capital demanded by print production result in centralized, or distributed production of prints? When, and to what extent, did printmakers and publishers in the Low countries favor international versus domestic collaborators? And were printmakers under the same pressure as painters to specialize in particular artistic genres? This dissertation ultimately suggests how simple professional incentives endemic to the practice of printmaking may, at large scales, have resulted in quite complex patterns of collaboration and production. The framework of network analysis surfaces the role of certain printmakers who tend to be neglected in aesthetically-focused histories of art. This approach also highlights important issues concerning art historians’ balancing of individual influence versus the impact of longue durée trends. Finally, this dissertation also raises questions about the current limitations and future possibilities of combining computational methods with cultural heritage datasets in the pursuit of historical research.

Resilience to Climate Change: An Ethnographic Approach

Global projections for climate change impacts produce a startling picture of the future for low-lying coastal communities. The United States’ Chesapeake Bay region and especially marginalized and rural communities will be severely impacted by sea level rise and other changes over the next one hundred years. The concept of resilience has been theorized as a measure of social-ecological system health and as a unifying framework under which people can work together towards climate change adaptation. But it has also been critiqued for the way in which it does not adequately take into account local perspective and experiences, bringing into question the value of this concept as a tool for local communities. We must be sure that the concerns, weaknesses, and strengths of particular local communities are part of the climate change adaptation, decision-making, and planning process in which communities participate. An example of this type of planning process is the Deal Island Marsh and Community Project (DIMCP), a grant funded initiative to build resilience within marsh ecosystems and communities of the Deal Island Peninsula area of Maryland (USA) to environmental and social impacts from climate change. I argue it is important to have well-developed understandings of vulnerabilities and resiliencies identified by local residents and others to accomplish this type of work. This dissertation explores vulnerability and resilience to climate change using an engaged and ethnographic anthropological perspective. Utilizing participant observation, semi-structured and structured interviews, text analysis, and cultural domain analysis I produce an in-depth perspective of what vulnerability and resilience means to the DIMCP stakeholder network. Findings highlight significant vulnerabilities and resiliencies inherent in the local area and how these interface with additional vulnerabilities and resiliencies seen from a nonlocal perspective. I conclude that vulnerability and resilience are highly dynamic and context-specific for the local community. Vulnerabilities relate to climate change and other social and environmental changes. Resilience is a long-standing way of life, not a new concept related specifically to climate change. This ethnographic insight into vulnerability and resilience provides a basis for stronger engagement in collaboration and planning for the future.