Epistularum sollemnium mos: Social Networks and Communication in the Letters of Augustine of Hippo (387-430)

• Applicant: Dr. Carmen Angela Cvetkovic
• Subject Area: Protestant Theology ; Ancient History ; Greek and Latin Philology
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 519897595

This project examines the letter collection of Augustine of Hippo (357-430) through the lenses of social network theory. It focuses on Augustine’s epistolary ties with a wide range of individuals from different cultural and social backgrounds and from different geographical regions of the Late Roman empire. It investigates how Augustine created, maintained, and put to use a large personal network by means of letter writing, by examining his various strategies of initiating, cultivating, or calling into question relationships. Despite offering rich grounds for investigation, so far there have been only a handful of scholarly attempts which touch on this subject and no comprehensive study is dedicated to an analysis of Augustine’s epistolary ties. In order to analyze the nature of Augustine’s epistolary relationships and the structure of his epistolary network, this project intends to draw on a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods for the study of social networks. The first step will be prosopography, namely the identification of the members of Augustine’s epistolary network. The second step corresponds to the detection and analysis of the different types of epistolary relationships. This will be followed by an investigation into the role that discursive techniques played in the formation of Augustine’s epistolary networks. Next, attention will be paid to how religious doctrine shaped the social behavior of Augustine and his correspondents, leading either to the establishment or dissolution of interpersonal relationships. The following step will investigate how Augustine constructed his own identity/ies in relation to others. These stages of the project are informed by qualitative approaches to social networks developed in the fields of social anthropology and relational sociology, which allow not only to detect different types of relationships, but which also draw attention to the importance of “meaning” and “culture” for the formation of social networks. The last step of the investigation will be concerned with the analysis of the structure of Augustine’s epistolary network based on techniques developed within the field of social network analysis (SNA). The SNA will help visualize and analyze a version of Augustine’s social environment as it emerges from his letter collection.The in-depth analysis of the nature of Augustine’s epistolary ties and of the structure of his personal network will allow us to shed new light on the intricate mechanisms of social interactions in late ancient society, to identify what kinds of business could be transacted through the use of the epistolary network, and to reevaluate how successful Augustine was in his interactions with prominent individuals of his day.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants