2010 CGA Conference - New Technologies and Interdisciplinary Research on Religion

CGA’s annual spring conference was successfully concluded on March 13th.

The two-day conference featured 6 panels and 18 presentations by scholars from 13 universities and 4 countries, drawing 60 some attendees from Harvard and beyond. Over a dozen posters were on display in the Friday poster session. The presentations included the collection of large data sets, the nature of measurements, and the construction of interactive websites. Some presentations discussed the application of GIS to substantive research in different geographic regions of the world. Scholars also presented cutting-edge programs that they had developed giving the audience a glimpse of the ways in which information can be linked and collected.

Jeff Howry and Joseph Greene won the Outstanding Poster Award with their poster titled “Over the Horizon: Phoenician Navigation & Sacred Landscapes”. Some of the early feedbacks from the attendees characterized the event as “broad reaching”, “intellectually stimulating”, with “enormous amount” of information. The main purpose of the conference, to bring scholars from various disciplines to discuss their use of new technologies in their research on religion was achieved. Some speakers are suggesting a follow up conference to continue the discussion.

The presentation slides, video recording and poster files will be made available with authors’ permission on the CGA website.

View the schedule of speakers and abstracts of talks in the official  Workshop Program.

2010 CGA Conference Presentations

March 12, 2010

Opening remarks by Rachel McCleary
Presentation   PDF

Panel I: Interactive Geospatial Databases 
Moderator James Robson

“Digital Atlas of Roman and Medieval Civilization”
by Michael McCormick and Guopoing Huang
Introduction   Presentation   PDF

“Regnum Francorum Online – Interactive maps and sources of early medieval Europe 614-918”
by Johan Åhlfeldt
Introduction   Presentation   PDF

“Mapping Religious Cyberscapes: Google and User Generated Religion”
by Matthew Zook
Introduction   Presentation   PDF

Panel II: Religion, Data and Technology 
Moderator Peter Bol

“Religion in the Digital Age”
by Suzanne Preston Blier and Ben Lewis
Introduction   Presentation   PDF

“Words in Space: GIS, Data Mining, and the Visual Display of Religion”
by John Corrigan
Introduction   Presentation   PDF

“Investigating Idiosyncrasy: Toward a Comprehensive Methodology of Visual Exploration and Analysis for Humanities Scholarship”
by Chris Weaver
Presentation   PDF

Panel III: Christian Missions and Their Secular Consequenses 
Moderator Suzanne Preston Blier

“Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Guatemala’s Religious Competition and Affiliation”
by Rachel McCleary
Introduction   Presentation   PDF

“Christians in Colonial Africa”
by Nathan Nunn
Introduction   Presentation   PDF

“Religion and Economic Change over a Century: Linking Diverse Historical Data to Understand the Roots of Long-term Change”
by Robert Woodberry and Juan Carlos Esparza Ochoa
Introduction   Presentation   PDF

Panel IV: Mapping Religious Adherence 
Moderator Rachel McCleary

“Re-imagining Religion:The Spatial Humaniti es as a Framework for New Scholarship”
by David Bodenhamer
Introduction   Presentation   PDF

“The Art and Science of Data Dissemination: An Overview of the Association of Religion Data Archives”
by Roger Finke
Presentation   PDF

“Impacting the World with Data: From a Million Data Points to Maps that Tell a Story”
by Brian Grim
Introduction   Presentation   PDF

March 13, 2010

Panel V: Religion in China 
Moderator Lex Berman

“Historical GIS and Chinese Religion: An Example”
by Peter Bol
Introduction   Presentation   PDF

“Network Analysis of Tibetan Buddhist Monasteries and Leaders”
by Gray Tuttle
Introduction   Presentation   PDF

“GIS Network Analysis of Historical Socioeconomic Relations between Muslims and Buddhists in Northwest China”  
by Karl Ryavec
PDF

“Techincal Issues in the Study of Local Chinese Religion and the Necessity of Breaching Disciplinary Walls”
by James Robson
Introduction   Presentation   PDF

Panel VI: Religious Cultural Patterns across Geography 
Moderator Sumeeta Srinivasan

“Irrigation, Cultural Individuation, and Global Networks: GIS Approaches to the History of Religion in the Alluvial Putian Plain of Southeast China”
by Kenneth Dean
Introduction   Presentation   PDF

“The Stars at Sunrise, A.D. 100: The Context of the Nabatean Zodiac at Khirbet et-Tannur, Jordan”
by Joseph A. Greene
Introduction   Presentation   PDF

“The Clash of Civilizations: A Cliometric Investigation”
by Murat Iyigun & Erin Fletcher
Introduction   Presentation   PDF

Closing Remarks and Poster Award 
Rachel McCleary and Peter Bo

2010 CGA Conference Posters

Islamopedia 
Luella Strattner

A Historical GIS Analysis of the Landscape Compositions: A Case Study of Folding Screens “Rakuchu-Rakugai-zu” 
Akihiro Tsukamoto

Spatial Intelligence for Religious Studies 
Shuming Bao

Temporal-Spatial Analysis of Guatemala’s Religious Competition and Affiliation 
Rachel M. McCleary, Jeff Blossom, and Jose Pesina

Mapping Religious Sites from Historical Textual Sources 
Lex Berman

Geospatial Analysis of Medieval Churches in Iceland 
John Wall, Dr. Margaret J. Cormack, and Dr. Norman S. Levine

Hewn Words: Deciphering the Tizoc Stone 
Willem VanEssendelft

Over the Horizon: Phoenician Navigation and Sacred Landscapes, part 2, part 3 
Jeff Howry & Joseph Greene

Baptist Networks in the Mid-Nineteenth-Century U.S. 
Kathryn Tomasek

Bengali Intellectuals and Decolonization: Visualizing Oral Histories Using Digital Tools 
Patrick Florence and David Grogan

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