'Our Interlocked Universe'

In his canonical book, Linked, Albert-László Barabási explored the history and prevalence of networks in the world, and how studying them opens new avenues of understanding, predicting that “network thinking is poised to invade all domains of human activity and most fields of human inquiry… aimed at approaching our interlocked universe.” Often influenced by methodologies from the social sciences, this ‘network thinking’ and an interest in the use of digital and computational tools within the humanities continues to flourish. More recently, this has fostered a growing demand to expand on how such interdisciplinary approaches can provide fresh insights into historical narratives.

Funded by the National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM), ‘Our Interlocked Universe’ will be an interdisciplinary conference exploring the methods and applications of social network analysis (SNA) within historical contexts, offering a space to engage with compelling demonstrations – both quantitative and qualitative – of historical SNA in practice but also methodological discussions around the specific uses and limitations associated with using SNA in historical research.