Dear All,

please consider submitting an abstract for the Paris Sunbelt 2020 session on Networks and the study of the human past.

Deadline: 31 January 2020

Organizers: Julie Birkholz (Ghent University, Belgium), Henning Hillmann (University of Mannheim, Germany), Martin Stark (ILS, Dortmund, Germany), Bernd Wurpts (University of Lucerne, Switzerland)

Session Description:

Most network research focuses on contemporary data and is presentist in orientation, overlooking the vast store of interesting data from the past. The aim of this interdisciplinary session is to further extend the community of scholars working with historical data by promoting contacts between the various disciplines that aim at making sense of past phenomena through methods and theories derived from network analysis and network science.

We are looking for papers exploring the challenges and potential posed by such network studies of past phenomena. Examples of such challenges and avenues include, but are not limited to: selective samples; missing data; big data and textual/semantic network analysis based on sources of the past.

The session invites contributions from researchers from various disciplines applying the methods of formal network analysis and network science on the human past. We welcome submissions concerning any period, geographical area or topic. The authors may be archaeologists, historians, social scientists or economists, as well as scholars from other disciplines working with historical or archaeological data. Thus, the content of the networks may include but is not limited to: past revolutions; migration; industrial revolution; diffusion processes; transitions from authoritarianism to democracy; international trade; kinship; war; religion and science.

For more information use the following link: https://www.insna.org/call-for-oral-presentations-and-posters

We hope to see you in Paris!

Best,

Bernd Wurpts, Ph.D.

Oberassistent

Department of Sociology

University of Lucerne