We live in an allegedly uniquely networked age, where technology gives us unprecedented opportunities to connect and communicate with each other. Similarly ‘networks’ have become a popular area of historical study and a frequently used historical buzzword. However, whilst there is a vibrant variety of scholarship looking at specific historical networks, there is a lack of coherent work on the category as a whole and consideration of its uses, and drawbacks, as a historical model.

This conference aims to interrogate what networks throughout history have in common, and conversely how they differ between time periods and locations. Are media or scholarly networks fundamentally unlike those based on business or family? How can historians investigate, measure and describe various types of networks? And, are the changes brought about by information technology in our own era fundamentally different from those of the past?

History Lab would like to bring together the diverse scholarship being done on the subject by postgraduate historians and early career researchers. Potential speakers are invited to submit papers or panels on both individual historical networks and on wider methodological issues. We are seeking to examine and discuss a diverse range of areas and topics and welcome papers from any area of history from medieval to the present as well as history outside of the west.

History Lab along with the North American Friends of the Institute of Historical Research, have several bursaries available for North American postgraduate students to travel to the conference. The bursaries will be between $500 and $1000, allocated depending on the field of applicants. To apply please submit your paper proposal by the 11th March Deadline, specifying that you wish to be considered for the bursary in the covering email.

To submit a proposal for the conference please send your title, a 300 word summary of your paper, your institutional affiliation, and contact details to Charles Smith at C.Smith4@lboro.ac.uk by Friday 11th March 2011. Proposals for panels should include this information for all papers and speakers.

Papers could consider:
Kinship Networks
Technological and communication developments
Policy networks and political cultures
‘Network Theory’ and historical work
Immigration, Diaspora and Transnationalism
Print culture and Intellectual Networks
Empire and Atlantic history
Business and trade networks
Subcultures and social movements
Church history and religious networks