Uncovering Hidden Histories: Modeling the Complexities of Memory, Knowledge, and Power
Chair: Beshero-Bondar, Elisa Eileen

Animating the Archive: Quantifying Forgetting, Censorship and Embedded Bias with Agent-based Modeling

Vogl, Malte (1); Buarque, Bernardo S. (2); Kaye, Aleksandra (1); Schlattmann, Raphael (4); Schmitz, Jascha (3,5); Weiß, Lea (3); von Welczeck, Laura (3)

1: Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Jena, Germany; 2: Motu Economic and Public Policy Research, Wellington, New Zealand; 3: Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Germany; 4: Technical University of Berlin, Germany; 5: Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany

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In this long paper we present the theoretical foundations and a software for Animating the archive. This novel approach brings together historical enquiry with simulation and statistical methods and thereby allows to quantitatively address possible mechanisms of active censorship, selected forgetting, or structural differences in memory generation.


Topic Modeling as a Way of Unlocking the Informational Potential of Oral History Sources in Studying the History of Ethnic Cleansing in the USSR: algorithm development and approbation of the program code

Iashchenko, Iuliia; Iashchenko, Anatolii

SARAS Department, Sapienza University of Rome

This study employs Topic Modeling to unlock the informational potential of oral history sources, exploring the history of ethnic cleansing in the USSR. Utilizing interviews, it addresses the challenges of incomplete archival data and represents collective memory, revealing hidden truth and daily life experiences of GULAG prisoners.


Tracing encyclopaedic knowledge: networks of race and slavery in the early Encyclopaedia Britannica

Charlton, Ash (1); Terras, Melissa (1); Paton, Diana (1); Betteridge, Robert (2)

1: University of Edinburgh; 2: National Library of Scotland

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This research uses network analysis to visualise and explore early editions of Encyclopaedia Britannica to explore explicit and implicit references to enslavement, focusing on case studies of the first and seventh editions (1768 and 1842). It raises important methodological questions about how we analyze legacies in historical information environments.