We have posted our ideas. We have pitched the proposed unconference sessions to each other in a series of one minute “lightning talks” and the votes (4 per person) are in! Here is the set-up for the Unconference:

Here is the vote - Unconference ahead!

Here is the vote – Unconference ahead!

 

Early AM Offers 

#1 for 9.15am Konrad Lawson – Maps that Communicate

A discussion session that focuses on thinking about the use of maps in historical scholarship. Beyond the basic map for identification, the, “Here is the geographical area or country that this article or section discusses,” map, what are some of the more or less effective ways to use maps to complement a historical argument? When is it better to use a map than plain tabular expression of data? Or some other visualisation? What are some things to avoid in creating or using maps? How should our texts engage with included maps? When geographically visualising flows or networks, what works and what doesn’t? If this session is chosen, I’ll bring two or three maps that do I think do this well, or not well, and encourage participants to (optionally) bring a map of their own choice for discussion. The goal is to exchange ideas about good practices.

#2 for 9.15am Martin Schaller – Hand-on Session on Digitised Sources

More and more memory institutions are digitizing their holdings and making them freely available. Simultaneously border transcending initiatives like DARIAH  or CLARIN  are working on infrastructures to provide digital tools for researchers in the humanities.
I would like to propose a collaborative hands-on session, in which we will have a look at multinational, multilingual digital source collections (like European Newspapers at The European Library or available collections in research.europeana.eu) and the technical challenges and limitations that influence our work with the available material. However I would like to propose to apply an historian’s point of view in order to critically examine the material’s usability for high-quality historical research. Thus the guiding questions will be: Do we, as historians, really need to become programmers, as Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie famously claimed in 1968? Does the available data live up to the quality of “analogue sources” in terms of reliability and contextualization? In which way can we use digitized sources to help our research or in other words which tools are we missing? As a base for discussion I would like to propose the following reading: Ian Milligan, Mining the ‘Internet Graveyard’: Rethinking the Historians’ Toolkit, Journal of the Canadian Historical Association/Revue de la Société historique du Canada, 23, 2012.

 

Unconference - Casting votes British-style (civilised)

Unconference – Casting votes British-style (civilised)

 

Late AM Offers 

#1 for 11.15 Matt Ylitalo & Madeleine Dungy – Research Symposium

A session for participants to share and engage each other directly about their own current research projects in an open discussion.

#2 for 11.15am Martin Schaller, Petru Szedlaczek, Pablo Sau, Matthaeus Feigk – The Exploration of Appropriate Methods in Analysing Knowledge Transfers

This proposal suggests the exploration of appropriate methods in analyzing knowledge transfers. Simple biographies of agents involved in knowledge transfers seem not to be enough. Instead, a combination of perspectives could work. Might linking prosopography with networks reveal how groups reify over large areas? Or one should first define a group from an analytical perspective and then visualize the networks formed by different actors facing common challenges? Genealogy clearly impacts elites’ original socialization. But what motivates elites to connect professionally? One possible understanding of prosopography is offered by the Modern History Research Unit of the University of Oxford. In this reading, prosopography is a perspective that focuses on four established methods: biography, onomastics, genealogy and sociography (or how groups form). To what extent could this take on actors and networks provide a comprehensive framework for research dealing with knowledge transfer? In order to apply the prosopographic-network approach, one can concentrate for instance on one particular scientific community in Russia in the early 19th century. The University of Dorpat in Livonia is central to group formation among Russian astronomers. Looking at names reveals their Baltic origin. Genealogy reflects family ambitions in sons following fathers’ professional track. Finally, sociography shows how local relationships translate into imperial professional networks. At the same time, different networks – e.g. family, profession – influence the life-path, socializing and choices of individuals. How can one reconcile different layers of networks impacting the same agent? What is the hierarchy of competing networks and how is it connected to the overarching research question?

Afternoon Pair Writing

For the afternoon, keep thinking about a partner with whom you wish to team-up for the pair writing writing session.

The pair writing (based on an idea elaborated here) works in a similar way with the day one writing exercise. This time the theme for the pair writing exercise is: how did the summer school inform your own research? You will get 15 minutes to talk to your partner and think about an outline. You then get 30 minutes to write down your thoughts as a “driver” while your “observer” intervenes occasionally with suggestions, critique, or corrections. They can help you with new ideas should you get stuck. In a final 10 minutes you look over what you have written, make any final edits, and post the resulting written extracts on our website here. After a break, we will switch “drivers” and reverse the roles.

Practicing Pair Writing (end of day 1)

Practicing Pair Writing (end of day 1)