Marcus Bingenheimer: "On the Use of Historical Social Network Analysis in the Study of Chinese Buddhism"

Abstract:

Can historical network analysis contribute to our understanding of Chinese Buddhism? The talk will describe some of the methods and data currently available for the application of formal network analysis. "Formal network analysis" in this context denotes the analysis and visualization of clearly defined, computable network data. After an introduction to network analysis as a method, the lecture will describe its application with the help of three case studies that are based on the Historical Social Network of Chinese Buddhism dataset (available on Github.)
 

Bio:

Marcus Bingenheimer is Associate Professor in the Department of Religion at Temple University in Philadelphia. He taught Buddhism and Digital Humanities in Taiwan at Dharma Drum (2005 to 2011) and held visiting positions and fellowships at universities in Korea, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, and France. Since 2001 he has supervised various projects concerning the digitization of Buddhist culture. His main research interests are the history and historiography of Buddhism, early sūtra literature, and how to apply computational approaches to research in the Humanities. He has published some sixty peer-reviewed articles and a handful of books.