Narratives and Networks: Digital Approaches Towards the Reconstruction of Past Connectivity, lecture by Johannes Preiser-Kapeller (Austrian Academy of Sciences), National & University Library, Zagreb, April 27, 2016, 12:00 pm

“Networks are phenomenological realities as well as measurement constructs” (Harrison C. White, Identity and Control. How Social Formations emerge. Princeton – Oxford 2008, p.36). Based on the conceptual frameworks of Harrison C. White and other theoreticians of relational sociology and systems theory, I will reflect on the actual content and dynamics of those social phenomena we aim to capture and visualise in the form of network graphs. Examples of network modelling and visualisation on the basis of historical and archaeological evidence from current projects undertaken at our institute will illustrate possible approaches and pitfalls for the mapping and analysis of complex entanglements between individuals, objects and places, also in their spatial and temporal dynamics. Thereby, also the interplay between “quantitative” or “structural” characteristics of networks and their emergent “qualitative” properties will become visible.

Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, born 1977. Dr. phil. (Byzantine Studies), University of Vienna 2006. Senior Research Associate at the Division for Byzantine Research/Institute for Medieval Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and Lecturer at the University of Vienna, he is also s supervisor of the projects “Complexities and networks in the Medieval Mediterranean and Near East (COMMED)” and “Mapping medieval conflicts: a digital approach towards political dynamics in the pre-modern period (MEDCON)”. Research Focus on Byzantine history in comparison and entanglement within the Medieval World as well as social and spatial network analysis and complexity theory.