This session of the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference 2016 (Bruges, Belgium – 18-20 August 2016) focuses on the study of cultural networks in the Renaissance and the methodological issues that accompany it. Rather than only focusing on the outcome of research on cultural networks in the Renaissance, this session aims (also) to address explicitly the methodological issues that historians deal with while conducting this type of research.

Call for Papers – Sixteenth Century Society and Conference 2016

Bruges, Belgium – 18-20 August 2016

Argument 

This session focuses on the study of cultural networks in the Renaissance and the methodological issues that accompany it. Rather than only focusing on the outcome of research on cultural networks in the Renaissance, this session aims (also) to address explicitly the methodological issues that historians deal with while conducting this type of research.

Presenters can choose either to focus on methodological questions concerning the analysis of cultural networks in the Renaissance in general, or present a specific case study (at any stage) concerning cultural networks in the Renaissance and use this in order to address also the main methodological issues that have been encountered. There are no geographical, chronological, or thematic restrictions on the type of cultural network. Some possible methodological issues to address include, but are not limited to: usefulness and limitations of digital humanities in network analysis; how to connect various networks to each other when different studies have different methods, technologies, and goals; advantages and disadvantages of visualization tools; small, closed circles vs. large, open networks; types of sources; definition of geographical and chronological range of the analysis.

Submission guidelines

Please send a title, an abstract (max. 250 words), and a short CV (max. 150 words) to Renaud Adam, Université de Liège (renaud.adam@ulg.ac.be) and Sandra Toffolo, Centre d’Études Supérieures de la Renaissance, Tours (sandra.toffolo@univ-tours.fr). Please detail any A/V needs that you might have.

For more information about the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference, please see the conference website: http://www.sixteenthcentury.org/conference/

The deadline for submission is 31 January 2016.

Decisions will be made by the panel organizers and will be communicated by 8 February.