The analysis exploits big data
Diana Roig Sanz, a researcher of the Spanish National Association of Ramón y Cajal Researchers and the UOC's Faculty of Arts and Humanities, is using big data to provide a better picture of the trade in book translations in Spain and Latin America between 1900 and 1945. Using as its evidence thousands of translations from and into Spanish that were published both as books and as articles in the leading literary and cultural journals of the time, the project will analyse the nature of the book market in Spain and Latin America during the first half of the 20th century. The goal is to make a significant contribution towards updating the current literature on the aesthetic modernity of the first third of the 20th century, which to date has largely ignored Hispanic influences on the intercultural and editorial networks of the era. The use of big data and an extensive scope of analysis will make it possible to show that Hispanic culture and literature – as well as the channels through which it was spread – played an important role in the intercultural and editorial networks of the time, and will refine traditional interpretations of the trade in cultural products and their centres of influence.
With funding from the BBVA Foundation's 2017 Leonardo Grants for Cultural Researchers and Creators, in its Humanities category, the study Diana Roig Sanz is conducting is titled Traducción y mercado. El estudio de la circulación del libro (España-Latinoamérica, 1900-1945) a partir de Big Data. It is hoped that this will help to develop conceptions of centres of innovation and the circles they influenced in international modernism, and that it will provide a stepping stone for future research on the history of books, translation, publishing and the networks and channels those working in this field established.
Diana Roig Sanz has been awarded a place as a Visiting Scholar for two months at the University of Oxford's prestigious Oxford Internet Institute. In connection with her project, this stay will allow her to further develop her insight into theories and methods for exploiting big data and digital tools in the field of the Humanities.