European Science Foundation Exploratory Workshop

Exploring New Methods for Prosopography in the Humanities and the Social Sciences, Uppsala University, May 10-11, 2007

Aims

The workshop will bring together scholars from different disciplines with a shared interest in prosopographical research. A particular aim is to create an encounter between on the one hand prosopographical methods used in certain kinds of historical research, on the other hand so called geometric data analysis methods most often used in more sociologically oriented research, mainly of French provenience.

Another aim will be to share experiences and ideas of the uses of advanced computer technology. During the workshop there will be presentations, discussions and exchanges of ideas, demonstrations of technical tools, and not the least explorations of the possibilities of future collaborative research across disciplines. If all works out well, the workshop might lead to a proposal for a European Interdisciplinary Prosopography Research Network.

Prosopography is used in historical studies of ancient, medieval and modern societies and in sociologically oriented studies of modern and contemporary societies. Prosopography is the collective study of common characteristics of groups of individuals, hitherto most often historical actors but in sociological studies also contemporary individuals. By means of comprehensive data collection and thorough investigations on common background characteristics such as social origin, occupation, inherited and acquired resources and positions in society, education, place of residence, religion, economical status etcetera scholars explore and analyse the material. Although outcomes and uses of prosopographical databases vary amongst historically and sociologically oriented prosopographers much of the methods for collecting and compiling the materials are essentially the same even though the foci of study, purposes and tools differ. Thus, scholars in very different disciplinary fields who utilise prosopographical methods are seldom very well informed of each others work. Therefore the need for a meeting places such as the planned workshop.

Meeting and exchanges on new methods in prosopography could not be accomplished without transnational collaboration. The forefronts of prosopographical research in the humanities in Europe are primarily to be found in the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, and Italy, whereas methods for sociological prosopography have been developed especially in France during the last decades but also elsewhere, for example in ongoing research in Sweden, Belgium and Denmark. The broad terms methods and tools mentioned above, include issues such as database design, means for categorisation and classification, data collection, data storage and data modelling, as well as available software tools and platforms.

Participants

The ESF Exploratory Workshop is only open to invited scholars. The registered participants are:

Donald Broady donald.broady@edu.uu.se, Uppsala University, Sweden (Convenor)
Web http://www.skeptron.uu.se/broady/sec/
Harold Short harold.short@kcl.ac.uk, King's College London, England (Convenor)
Web http://www.cch.kcl.ac.uk/legacy/tmp/department.html#hs

Stephen Baxter stephen.baxter@kcl.ac.uk, King's College London, England
Mikael Borjesson mikael.borjesson@ilu.uu.se , Uppsala University, Sweden
Research: Sociology of Education, Transantional Strategies in Higher Education, Elite Education, Social Classification, Geometric Data Analysis
John Bradley john.bradley@kcl.ac.uk , King's College London, England
Jean-Michel Carrie carrie@ehess.fr , Université de Paris I, France
Antonin Cohen antonincohen@aol.com, Université d’Amiens Picardie Jules-Verne, France
Matthew James Driscoll mjd@hum.ku.dk, Københavns Universitet, Denmark
Werner Eck eck@uni-koeln.de, Universitat zu Koln, Germany
Bo G Ekelund bo.ekelund@english.su.se, Stockholm University, Sweden
Martin Gustavsson martin.gustavsson@ekohist.su.se, Stockholm University, Sweden
Research: Economic and Social History, Sociology of Culture, Economic and Cultural Elites.
Ole Hammerslev ohv@sam.sdu.dk , University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Reserach: Sociology of law, transnational legal fields, feminism and law, legal methodology, the legal profession.
Johs Hjelbrekke Johs.Hjellbrekke@sos.uib.noUniversity of Bergen, Norway
Michael Jeffreys michael.jeffreys@modern-languages.oxford.ac.uk, Oxford University, England
Research: 6th-20th centuries, concentrating on the interface between literature in Greek and history. Most recent work has been on Prosopography of the Byzantine World (11th-12th centuries)
Åsa Karlsson, asa.karlsson@sblexikon.se, Svenskt biografiskt lexikon, Sweden
Katharine Keats-Rohan katharine.keats-rohan@history.ox.ac.uk, Oxford University, England
Research: Elite society in medieval north-west France and England
Esbjörn Larsson esbjorn.larsson@edu.uu.se , Uppsala University, Sweden
Research: History of education, social history, military history, cadet academies.
Frédéric Lebaron frederic.lebaron@u-picardie.fr, Université de Picardie Jules-Verne, France
Ida Lidegran ida.lidegran@edu.uu.se, Uppsala University, Sweden
Research: Educational Strategies, Elites, Gender, Geometric Data Analysis.
Claudia Ludwig ludwig@bbaw.de, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Germany
Research: Byzantine Studies, especially Sigillography, Hagiography and Church History.
Mikael Madsen mikael.madsen@jur.ku.dk, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Thomas Pratsch thomas_pratsch@web.de, AV Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin, Germany
Francesca Tinti f.tinti@unibo.it , Università di Bologna, Italy
Research: the History of Anglo-Saxon England
Daan Vandenhaute daan.vandenhaute@ugent.be, Universiteit Gent, Belgium
Research: Sociology of literature (esp. Scandinavian literature)
Monica Langerth Zetterman monica.zetterman@edu.uu.se, Uppsala University, Sweden (Workshop Coordinator)
Research: History of education, database design, text markup, visualisation

Workshop programme

Programme in PDF format

Papers

Submitted papers and presentations can be found here and in the programme below.

Please submit your title and your paper/presentation – if available – before the start of the workshop to Monica Langerth Zetterman monica.zetterman@edu.uu.se
If someone wants to distribute texts on location, there are copying facilities.
English will be the working language during this workshop but we welcome papers in other languages.
The conference room is equipped with a data projector and an overhead.
There will be wireless Internet access for everyone and Ethernet connection for presentations.

Thursday May 10

10.00 - 10.30	Harold Short & Donald Broady	Welcome and presentation of participants
10.30 - 12.00	*Prosopography in the humanities and the social sciences*	Chair: Donald Broady
	Harold Short & John Bradley
	Frédéric Lebaron Prosopography in sociology, contemporary history and political science in France : introductory remarks
12.00 - 13.00	Lunch
13.00 - 14.30	*Prosopography in the humanities*	Chair: Harold Short
	Thomas Pratsch Statistical Data on the Basis of Prosopographical Research (Prosopography of the Middle-Byzantine Period)
	Stephen Baxter & Francesca Tinti Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England: Phases 1 and 2
	Jean-Michel Carrie
14.30 - 15.00	Coffe break
15.00 - 16.30	*Prosopography in the social sciences*	Chair: Mikael Madsen
	Antonin Cohen La Constitution européenne. Elites, mobilisations, votes
	Bo G Ekelund
	Daan Vandenhaute Entering and surviving. The early careers of first-time poets in the Swedish literary field of the 1970s
16.30 - 16.45	Break & refreshments
16.45 - 17.45	*Prosopography in the humanities*	Chair: Monica Langerth Zetterman
	Matthew Driscoll XML markup of prosopographical data
	Katharine Keats-Rohan Biography and Prosopography – Telling the Difference

18.30 - 19.45	*Guided Tour* Museum Gustavianum
20.00 -	Conference Dinner

Friday May 11

9.00 - 10.30	*Prosopography in the humanities*	Chair: Harold Short
	Werner Eck Prosopographie und das Problem der Quellen -Prosopography and the problem of sources
	Michael Jeffreys Personal threads from an underdeveloped historical fleece: the Prosopography of the Byzantine World project
	*Prosopography in the social sciences*
	Donald Broady
10.30 - 11.00	Coffe break
11.00 - 12.30	*Prosopography in the social sciences*	Chair: Donald Broady
	Mikael Madsen Identifying the Indefinable and Researching the Unreachable: Transnational Research Design in the Study of the Internationalisation of Law
	Ole Hammerslev Studying transnational fields: the case of the EU-enlargement towards Eastern Europe
	Mikael Börjesson Studying Educational Fields and Social Structures on a National Level. The SEC Datasets on Individual Based Information from Statistics Sweden, 1960-2005.
	Ida Lidegran How to Construct Educational Spaces with Data from Statistics Sweden
12.30 - 13.30	Lunch
13.30 - 14.15	*Prosopograph in the social sciences*	Chair: Ida Lidegran
	Martin Gustavsson Swedish Art Students and Art Producers, 1945-2005. Constructing a Database for Prosopographical Studies of Social Origin, Education and Career.
	Esbjörn Larsson & Monica Langerth Zetterman Titles as capital
14.15-14.30	Break (coffee & beverages)
14.30 - 15.30	*Demos*
	Mikael Börjesson & Ida Lidegran Geometric Data Analysis (GDA) in Practice
	Thomas Pratsch The Prosopography of the Middle-Byzantine Period database http://pom.bbaw.de/pmbz/
	Francesca Tinti Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England database http://www.pase.ac.uk/
	John Bradley & Harold Short The Clergy of the Church of England Database (CCEd) database http://www.theclergydatabase.org.uk/
15.30 - 16.00	Coffee break
16.00 - 17.00	*Looking ahead*
	Network proposal and closing of workshop	Harold Short & Donald Broady