News

The 2024 Connected Past Conference “Religious Networks in Antiquity” will be held at the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, Canada from October 4-6 2024. The keynote and opening reception will take place at October 3 2024. An optional network science workshop will be held on October 2-3 2024 (special registration needed).

The conference schedule is now up!

For updates, see the University of British Columbia conference pages.


Conference Schedule

Thursday, October 3rd: Green College Coach House

5:00 pm Opening remarks and Keynote Address by Dr. Anna Collar (University of 
Southampton): “Meaningful Networks: Who Do you Trust?”

7:00 pm Reception, Green College Graham House

Friday, October 4th: Green College Coach House

8:00-9:00 Registration

Session 1: Networks and Religious Diffusion – Chair: TBD

9:00-9:05 Welcome

9:05-9:30 Barbara Mills, “Internal Frontiers and Broad Bridges: Spatial and Social Networks of Religious Innovation and Diffusion in the Ancient U.S. Southwest”

9:30-9:55 Andrew F. Ward, “Modelling Ritual Adoptions in a Colonial Middle Ground – Western Sicily”

9:55-10:20 Zach Buck, “Polis and Patron: Modelling Patron Deities and Cultic Spread in
Ancient Greece using Hansen’s Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis”

10:20-10:40 Coffee Break

Session 2: Networks and Identity – Chair: Matt McCarty

10:40-10:45 Welcome

10:45-11:10 Emma Buckingham, “(Criss-)Crossing Cultural Frontiers: A Social Network Approach to Early Archaic Religious Sites in Sicily”

11:10-11:35 Lindsey A. Mazurek, “Micronetworks: Statue Groups, Identity, and Agency in the Kalindoia Sebasteion”

11:35-12:00 Benjamin Winnick, “Clique Structures of Mythic Genealogies as Indicators of Ancient Greek Ethnogenesis”

12:00-1:30 Lunch

Session 3: Networks and Religious Change – Chair: Jelena Todorovic

1:30-1:35 Welcome

1:35-2:00 Thierry Petit, “The Sphinx in the Ancient Mediterranean Network of the
Phoenicians”

2:00-2:25 Fiona Coward, “From forager ideologies to agricultural religions? A networked approach to the spread of religious effects across the Epipalaeolithic and early Neolithic of southwest Asia”

2:25-2:50 Georgia Landgraf, “Origins of the Omphalos: Delphi in the Age of Colonies”

2:50-3:10 Coffee Break

Session 4: Thinking Through “Data” – Chair: Teresa Luther

3:10-3:35 Zeba Crook, “Locating Paul’s Ekklēsiai among Occupational Associations”

3:35-4:00 Rocío Da Riva, “Political Change, Archival Networks and Religious Festivities in I millennium BCE Mesopotamia”

4:00-4:25 Edward Slingerland, “Durkheim with Data: The Database of Religious History (DRH)”

4:25-4:50 Megan J. Daniels, “Visualizing religious networks in the Eastern Mediterranean: The Intercultural Iconographies Project”

Saturday, October 5th: C. K. Choi Building, Room 120

8:00-9:00 Registration

Session 1: Networks in Literary and Epigraphic Sources 1 – Chair: Alessandro Intropido

9:00-9:05 Welcome

9:05-9:30 Sandra Blakely, “The power of powerful friends: Eigenvector centrality, Chios, and the Samothracian Networks”

9:30-9:55 Francesca Mazzilli and José Carlos López-Gómez, “Interplay between Religious, Social, and Spatial Networks in Lusitania”

9:55-10:20 Colin Omilanowski, “Creating the Social Network of the Self: Negotiating Marcus Agrippa’s Public Identities through His Inscribed Media”

10:20-10:40 Coffee Break

Session 2: Networks in Literary and Epigraphic Sources 2 – Chair: TBD

10:40-10:45 Welcome

10:45-11:10 Raúl Sánchez Casado and Émilie Martinet, “Funerary cult as a social structuring
factor during the Old Kingdom” 

11:10-11:35 Hakan Özlen, “Navigating Identity: Christian Selfhood and Rejection in
‘Octavius’”

11:35-12:00 Jamie Wood, “Named and unnamed intermediaries in the making of the Church in late antique Iberia”

12:00-1:30 Lunch

Session 3: Networks and Social Complexity 1 – Chair: Kevin Fisher

1:30-1:35 Welcome

1:35-2:00 Aleksa Alaica, “Non-Human Networks: Herding, Mobility and Moche Religious Impact”

2:00-2:25 Mariana Egri, “Networks of power and authority in the lower Danube basin during the 1st century AD”

2:25-2:50 Elizabeth A. Keyser, “The Role of Rhyta in Mycenaean Networks of Ritual Practice and Power”

2:50-3:10 Coffee Break

Session 4: Networks and Social Complexity 2 – Chair: Lisa Cooper

3:10-3:35 Adrian T. Proestos, “Reconstructing Regional and Local interaction of the Ancient Oenotrians”

3:35-4:00 Sarah Wilker, “Contagious Cups: Investigating the Impact of Complex Contagions on Wine Vessels, Wine Drinking, and Community Social Networks in the Ancient World”

4:00-4:25 Dermot Grant, “Sailing to Sanctuaries. Locating Aegean Sanctuaries as Nodes on Trade Networks and Waypoints on Navigation Routes”

4:25-4:50 Lindsay Der, “From heterarchy to emergent social inequality: Çatalhöyük and human-animal relationships”

Sunday, October 6th: C. K. Choi Building Room 120

8:00-9:00 Registration

Session 1: Networks and Religious Landscapes 1 – Chair: Alex Hagler

9:00-9:05 Welcome

9:05-9:30 M. Ali Akman, “Understanding Territories of the Divine: A Network Perspective on the Influence of the Hittite Gods”

9:30-9:55 Christine Johnston, “Under the Watchful Eye of the Lady of the Horizon”  

9:55-10:20 Lana Radloff, “Sacred Seafaring: Intervisibility, Cult Sites, and Maritime
Mobility”

10:20-10:40 Coffee Break

Session 2: Networks and Religious Landscapes 2 – Chair: Georgia Landgraf

10:40-10:45 Welcome

10:45-11:10 Lilly Hickox, “Iconographic Transformations in the Northern Apennines: A Network
Analysis of Etruscan Bronze Votives, from the 7th-5th Centuries BCE” 

11:10-11:35 Emma Bentley and Sarah A. Cox, “Protection for the Ladies: Diffusion of Egyptian Bes and Taweret to Minoan Beset and Genii during the Bronze Age”

11:35-12:00 Kristine Mallinson and Matthew Harder, “Computational Approaches to Minoan Peak Sanctuaries Outside of Crete”


This workshop and conference is sponsored by The Connected Past, The Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions, UBC Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies, The UBC Centre for Computational Social Sciences, Green College UBC, The UBC Centre for Migration Studies, The UBC Public Humanities Hub, UBC History, UBC Anthropology, the Vancouver Chapter of the Archaeological Institute of America, the Database of Religious History, UBC Advanced Research Computing, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.


To stay connected, tweet using #ConnectedPast2024 before and during the conference.


News

  • Thank you for an excellent conference in Helsinki! Click here for a recap of the event.