A New Serendipity: Spatial Connections and Big Data

This paper will explore the way space, as a category of analysis, can reveal unexpected juxtapositions, unusual combinations, and odd couplings in otherwise disparate and hard to connect historical data.  The approach can be seen both as a constructive enterprise, aggregating unexpected but historically meaningful combinations, as well as a deconstructive move, highlighting the heterogeneity of historically situated places and processes.