VRE for the History of Political Discourse
Dr Simon Hodson
s.d.hodson@hull.ac.uk
www.earlymoderntexts.org
vre.earlymoderntexts.org
vre.politicaldiscourse.org.uk
Outline
1. Scholarly Developments in the History of Political Discourse
What is the scholarly and research need for VREs in the history of
political discourse / early modern studies?
2. MA in the History of Political Discourse
a. Student ownership of the VRE
b. Enhancement of digital resources
c.
User feedback
3. Early Modern VRE Research Group
a. Activities
b. Research Agenda
c.
User experience
Scholarly developments in the history of political discourse…
From the history of political ideas to
the history of political discourse.
 Transformation of the canon; recovery of
lost voices.
 Concern with language and the
mediation of power and contestation: the
lexicon is a battleground.
 Social history as history of concepts,
and history of concepts as a study of
discourse and languge.
 Linguistic turn among historians of
ideas, and a new historicism in the study
of literary texts.
An erosion of boundaries between hitherto
discrete approaches leads to a fertile
interdisciplinarity.
And the need for collaborative
research…
The Explosion in Digital Resources!!!
Early English Books Online (EEBO)
Eighteenth Century Collections Online
(ECCO).
A host of other collections: Gallica,
Biblioteca Virtuel Saavedra Fajardo.
The availability and scope of digital
resources have amplified some preexisting scholarly trends:
• shattering the ‘canon’;
• reception and re-reading rather than
simply ‘production’;
• potential of full-text resources…
What is the best way to exploit these
developments?
What is a VRE?
Definition offered by the OST e-Infrastructure Working Group
A VRE is a set of online tools, systems and processes interoperating to
facilitate or enhance the research process within and without institutional
boundaries. The purpose of a Virtual Research Environment (VRE) is to
provide researchers with the tools and services they need to do research
of any type as efficiently and effectively as possible. This means VREs
will help individual researchers manage the increasingly complex range
of tasks involved in doing research. In addition they will facilitate
collaboration among communities of researchers, often across
disciplinary and national boundaries.
RePAH: just connect…
Connecting historians with each other, holdding out the prospect of
increased collaboration between geographically dispersed researchers,
or simply between historians who wish to collaboratively and cumulatively
on the same data sets and resources.
Hull - UEA VRE Consortium
JISC VRE Project:
 Three years from January 2005.
 Explore the use of Access Grid and Sakai for the delivery of a jointlytaught MA programme.
British Academy Project:
 Eighteen months from April 2006.
 Explicitly to expand our activities to establish a ‘Virtual Research
Group’.
Team:
Professors Glenn Burgess and Howell Lloyd at Hull.
Professor Colin Davis and Dr Mark Knights at UEA.
Web-developer, Paul Beckett and the servers based at UEA.
Project Manager, Simon Hodson at Hull.
MA Programme; Virtual Research Group; eTexts Forum (Pilot)
Research-centred, student-led pedagogy…
 Access Grid for Joint Seminars
between Hull and UEA.
 Sakai Collaborative Environment for
resources, collaborative and
communication tools.
2005-6 Pilot
2006-7: Full Programme Runs
 Three core modules taught (Authority
and Ideology and Historiography in
Semester One; Obedience and
Dissent in Semester Two.
 All seminars conducted using AG and
VNC.
 All seminars study early modern texts
available electronically.
MA in the History of Political Discourse
Student ownership of the VRE: discussion board and wiki
MA in the History of Political Discourse
Student ownership of the VRE: Civil War Radicalism
MA in the History of Political Discourse
Access Grid MA Seminars with VNC
MA in the History of Political Discourse
Access Grid MA Seminars with VNC
MA in the History of Political Discourse
User Feedback
‘An excellent forum for discussion and debate.’
‘The audio visual format … was extremely good and gave the
opportunity for more academic (tutorial) input than a conventional
seminar.’
‘This has been a most stimulating and fascinating module. All the
teachers, in Hull and in Norwich, were amazing and very able at
putting across their knowledge. One felt very privileged and lucky
to have access to such an array of knowledge.’
MA in the History of Political Discourse
Access Grid for a ‘Virtual’ Research Group
‘Virtual Research Group’: Different constructions of the Commonwealth
and Polity
 Launched at a workshop in September 2006.
 22 researchers at 13 UK institutions.
 Bid to AHRC to extend the project over three more years, to produce a
collaboratively authored eDictionary of Early Modern Keywords and
Concepts.
Monthly AG Seminars
 Seven to date, started in November 2006.
 Combination of full Room Nodes and Desktop Nodes.
 Seminars have generally involved 12-15 participants at 8-10 sites.
 Full participation: up to 17 PIGs and 8 Room Nodes (UEA, Hull, Leeds,
Sheffield, Newcastle, York, Essex, Oxford).
Use of Sakai
 Collaborative and communication tools.
 Wiki: potential for multiple contributions, collaborative authorship and
publication to the web.
Early Modern VRE Research Group
Virtual Research Group Seminars
Early Modern VRE Research Group
Virtual Research Group Portal
Early Modern VRE Research Group
Virtual Research Group Portal: Wiki
Early Modern VRE Research Group
VRG’s Research Agenda
Themes explored to date…
1. History of concepts.
2. Words and Concepts.
3. Virtues: honesty/honestas.
4. Commonwealth (and Republic).
5. Commonwealth in 1649.
6. Transatlantic Republicanism in the eighteenth century.
7. Republicanism in North America.
8. Res publica, chose publique and république in France.
9. Plebeian views of the commonwealth in the rebellions of 1549.
Early Modern VRE Research Group
VRG’s Research Agenda
Potential of Collaborative Research:
 Transformative impact on research through intense and sustained
collaboration: the convenience of AG seminars; VRE support for finegrained collaboration.
 ‘Interdisciplinarity’: historians of political thought and political discourse;
social historians; lettrists… + art historians, corpus linguists…
 North American, European and Antipodean collaborations.
Modalities of Collaboration?
 Possessive individualism of scholarship or ‘open source research
model’?

Rozenzweig, ‘Can history be open source?’, Journal of American
History, 2006.
 Interdisciplinary conversations?
 Fine-grained collaboration, collective authorship?
Early Modern VRE Research Group
Virtual Research Group Portal: Attribution
Early Modern VRE Research Group
User Experience
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Need to invest human resource in AG preparation and operation.
Induction and dissemination: required to create a genuine Virtual
Research Community and expand the VRE beyond the easy adopters.
Adequate funding of research time.
Early Modern VRE Research Group
eDictionary of Keywords in
Early Modern Political Culture
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A series of collaboratively authored, online articles.
To be produced following the current model of collaboration, with
sub-groups/working groups.
Collaboratively authored within the Sakai wiki, then ‘published’ to
the web.
The evolution of a VRE through the development of an ongoing
and sustainable Virtual Research Community.
Early Modern Texts Forum as a community VRE?
Early Modern VRE Research Group
Thank You - Questions?
Dr Simon Hodson
s.d.hodson@hull.ac.uk
www.earlymoderntexts.org
vre.earlymoderntexts.org
vre.politicaldiscourse.org.uk