Man of His Words
February 28, 2013鈥擜s an expert on the life and works of poet John Milton, Assistant Professor appreciates 鈥渇antastic sentences.鈥� His interest in the social and cultural histories of sentences has led him to write his second book, Cyberformalism.
Shore has been teaching at Georgetown for two years, and his interdisciplinary work often touches on linguistics, philosophy, and sociology. He began writing Cyberformalism four years ago, inspired by the presence of novel 鈥渄igital tools鈥� like Google Books to explore the full sweep of the textual past.
鈥淲hen we think about literature, we often think about big forms, like the genre of the novel, or somewhat smaller forms like the sonnet,鈥� said Shore, who plans to finish Cyberformalism by spring 2015.
鈥淚鈥檓 interested in the form of individual sentences, the way that sentences are put together. Specifically, I鈥檓 interested in whether those forms of sentences accumulate meanings, connotations, and cultural careers in the way that words do.鈥�
In literary theory, formalism is the critical evaluation of features in a text, such as grammar, word choice, and syntax. According to Shore, cyber formalism is best understood as a formalist study aided by the use of technology.
鈥淭he term 鈥榗yber鈥� is actually from the Greek 鈥楰ubernetes,鈥� which refers to the steersman of a boat,鈥� Shore said. 鈥淭he idea is that you are interfacing with the technology鈥攖hat you鈥檙e controlling it, governing it, but that the technology also allows you to do something that you couldn鈥檛 do otherwise.鈥�
Shore鈥檚 鈥渇avorite example鈥� of cyber formalist study, which is found in the first chapter of his book, is the evolution of the Christian catchphrase 鈥榃WJD?鈥�, which stands for 鈥榃hat Would Jesus Do?鈥� Shore theorizes that the grammar of this famous question, which has changed over time, speaks to a social mindset.
鈥淚 claim that people only started to ask what Jesus 鈥榳ould鈥� do in or around 1631,鈥� Shore said. 鈥淭he form there asks about Jesus in the conditional. It鈥檚 a counterfactual conditional. You鈥檙e asking, 鈥榃hat would Jesus do if he were here now, or if he were in my situation?鈥� Before that, everybody talked about imitating Jesus in an indicative mood. They鈥檇 say, 鈥榊ou should do what Jesus did. Follow him. Take up the cross.鈥欌��
Shore explained that this 鈥渨eird shift鈥� occurred because believers began to realize that their lives in 17th-century England were so different from the life of Jesus, who lived in first-century Palestine, that they should adapt Christian teachings to modern culture.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 only the kind of thing I can know or make a claim about with any reasonable degree of certainty because I have searchable digital archives like Google Books,鈥� Shore said.
Shore bridges technology and text in another current project, Six Degrees of Francis Bacon, which studies not sentences or words but the authors who create them. Last July, Google awarded a grant for the project to Shore and his research collaborators at Carnegie Mellon University, Christopher Warren, Mike Feingold, and Cosma Shalizi.
Named in honor of the pop-cultural game that associates people with actor Kevin Bacon, the version Shore is engineering finds links between historical figures who lived in the same era.
鈥淪uppose you think, 鈥楬ow is John Milton connected to George Fox, who founded the Quakers in the late 1640s and early 1650s?鈥� By mapping out the connections, you can create a synthetic picture of the way Milton was related,鈥� Shore said. 鈥淎t three degrees, for example, Milton knew George Fleetwood, George Fleetwood knew Gervase Babington, and Gervase Babington knew George Fox.
鈥淭hat fact in itself may not be significant,鈥� he said, 鈥渂ut considered alongside other relationships, it can turn up a fuller picture of how people were associated in the period.鈥�
Shore hopes that by founding a statistics-powered 鈥渟ocial network鈥� for luminaries of the 17th century鈥攐ne that visually resembles Facebook and incorporates the open-edit features of Wikipedia鈥攖heir works can be better understood by scholars and the general public.
鈥淭exts don鈥檛 exist in isolation. Everyone is always writing and composing text by taking material from the people they鈥檙e reading or from conversations they鈥檙e having with friends,鈥� he said. 鈥淚f we want to understand how texts come to be the way they are, we have to understand the relationships between authors, their associates, and other writings.鈥�
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