Collecting Lives: Critical Data Narrative as Modernist Aesthetic in Early Twentieth-Century US Literatures

Algorithms categorize individuals based on personal data and predict and shape their lives, often replicating biases. Collecting Lives examines the late nineteenth and early twentieth century US to provide an instructive prehistory to the relationship between data, life, and narrative. Rodrigues argues that data-driven modernists such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Henry Adams, Gertrude Stein, and Ida B. Wells-Barnett use data to tell different life stories and tell life stories differently due to data.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 248 pages
Publication date: 16 May 2022
Publisher: The University of Michigan Press

In today's world, data plays a pivotal role in shaping our lives on a daily basis. Categorizing algorithms utilize vast amounts of personal data to assign narrative destinies to individuals at critical junctures, simultaneously predicting and influencing the course of our lives. While data is often perceived as a means of achieving objectivity, the narratives these algorithms generate often perpetuate biases about who we are and who we can become.

While the social implications of these algorithmic logics are increasingly relevant and pressing, Collecting Lives offers a historical perspective by examining the use of data collection in the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. By contextualizing the application of data to human selfhood in this period, Rodrigues uncovers a modernist aesthetic of data that provides an alternative to the algorithmic logic that dominates our understanding of the potential revelations offered by data.

Through an analysis of the works of W. E. B. Du Bois, Henry Adams, Gertrude Stein, and Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Rodrigues explores how each of these authors draws from their expertise in sociology, history, psychology, and journalism to formulate a critical data aesthetic. They examine how these authors use data to answer questions of identity around race, gender, and nation, both in their research and their life writing.

What sets these data-driven modernists apart is their ability to tell different life stories through data. They approach life stories differently because of the insights and perspectives data provides. By leveraging data, they are able to uncover new narratives, challenge existing assumptions, and offer fresh perspectives on the world.

In conclusion, data has the power to shape our lives in profound ways. While it is often assumed to bring us closer to objectivity, the narratives generated by categorizing algorithms often perpetuate biases and reinforce existing inequalities. Collecting Lives provides an insightful prehistory to the relationship between data, life, and narrative, highlighting the potential of a modernist aesthetic of data to offer an alternative to the algorithmic logic that dominates our understanding of data's revelatory potential. By examining the work of influential authors who have approached life stories differently because of data, we can gain a deeper appreciation of the ways in which data can be used to tell life stories differently and to challenge our assumptions about the world.

Weight: 396g
Dimension: 150 x 227 x 20 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780472038909