Chapter Seventeen - Cavendish Studies and the Digital Turn

Summary

Even as she engaged with contemporary innovations in science and technology, Margaret Cavendish cultivated a cautious approach toward both artificial tools and quantitative methods. In that sense, she anticipated the “productive unease” of modern digital humanities scholars, who derive principles of a critical praxis from the tension between traditional humanistic research and computational techniques. This chapter examines the intersection between Cavendish studies and the digital turn in order to demonstrate the impact of digitally aided methods on interdisciplinary inquiries into Cavendish’s life and works and also to consider the influence that Cavendish’s own philosophy can have on digital humanities practices. It examines the contributions of the community associated with the Digital Cavendish (digitalcavendish.org) collaborative, and then addresses the larger question of how Cavendish’s awareness of the social dimensions of knowledge production and her pragmatic concerns about the limits of artifice might generate insights into the institutions, forms, and models of digital humanities research.