Sociology meets Software

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> Analytical Sociology; Computational Social Science; Large Language Models

I'm Hendrik and a PhD student at the Institute for Analytical Sociology at Linköping University, Sweden, where I research the policymaking process in U.S. Congress using Computational Text Analysis with the help of Linguistics and Transformer/Large Language Models. In my free time, I'm an Open Source contributor, mainly to Zettlr, but I also collaborate with other projects, such as Winter CMS.

My strong suit is the ability to bridge the gap between non-technical research in the arts and humanities and the technical side of software and hardware development. I find it fascinating to throw political and sociological theory at code, and vice versa. I've already done so in various publications (see below), where I explore the political and social ramifications of software on a theoretic level, and currently I am making use of code (specifically Large Language Models) for sociological research.

!German (native)
!English (C2)
!Swedish (B1)
!French (A2)
!Japanese (A1)

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Table of Contents

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Education

• PhD (ongoing), Analytical Sociology/Computational Social Science, Linköping University
• Master of Arts (2017), "Societies, Globalization, and Development" (_Gesellschaften, Globalisierung und Entwicklung_), University of Bonn
• Bachelor of Arts (2014), History (major) and Political Sciences & Sociology (minor), University of Bonn

Professional Experience

10/2019 – 09/2020: Researcher at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg (IFSH)

• Research on the abilities of software and the development of sensors, embedded devices, and processing environments
• Interdisciplinary research at the nexus between social science and computer science
• Read more on the official project page …

10/2017 – 09/2019: Research Assistant at the Institute for Political Science and Sociology, University of Bonn

• General administrative tasks
• Teaching (four undergraduate courses, see teaching experience)
• Project Management for a reader on Digital Politics in Germany

05/2016 – 07/2016: Student Assistant for Data Cleaning, Center for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn

• Management of a large dataset on the food-energy-security nexus in Ethiopia (approx. 300 variables, several million observations)
• Pre-calculations and shifting of certain indicators for later analytical use by the project's supervisors
• The final project contained two dozen Stata .do-files, varying in size between 100 and 1.000 lines

04/2015 – 07/2015: Tutor for Statistical Methods, Institute for Political Sciences and Sociology, University of Bonn

• Two tutorial courses on quantitative data analysis (undergraduate level)
• Coverage of basic statistics up until linear regression
• Management of course materials and in-class tasks

05/2014 – 04/2016: Student Assistant at the German Federal Agency for Political Education (bpb), Bonn

• Taking care of the Drupal-based website
• Researching content and publishing material on Open Educational Resources (OER)
• Working with the different departments in publishing content

Teaching Experience

Winter Term 2018/2019

• Policial Sciences 101 (BMPG)
• Workflow supercharged: Tooling for academic publishing (PMTP)

Summer Term 2018

• Political Sciences 101 (BMPG)
• "Marxismus in der Krise" (Optional courses at the faculty for philosophy)

Software Development


Operating Systems

!Microsoft Windows
!macOS
!iOS
!Linux

Programming/Scripting Languages & Frameworks

!JavaScript
!TypeScript
!LESS
!Rust
!C/C++
!PHP
!Python
!Node.js
!Electron
!Vue.js
!Laravel
!Lumen
!PyTorch
!TensorFlow

Software & Tooling

!Stata
!RStudio
!Jupyter Notebooks
!Microsoft Office
!LibreOffice
!Zettlr
!Visual Studio Code
!Google Chrome
!Mozilla Firefox
!Gimp 2
!iMovie
!Steinberg CuBase 5
!AVID ProTools
!Apple Logic
!iTerm 2
!Webpack
!Gulp
!GitHub Actions
!LaTeX
!Pandoc
!Zotero
!CitationStyleLanguage
!Nextcloud
!OBS Studio

Publications

• Erz, H. (2015). Die Postmoderne. Radikale Moderne oder neue Epoche? _Politik und Gesellschaft_, _2_, 79–96.
• Erz, H. (2016a, June 11). _Die äthiopische Frontier_ \[Paper\]. Symposium “Why so monochrome?,” Historisches Seminar der Universität Bonn.
• Erz, H. (2017a). _Die (Ver)fassung wahren – „Constitutional Cultures in Comparative Perspective“_ \[Tagungsbericht\]. Soziologiemagazin. https://soziologieblog.hypotheses.org/10891
• Erz, H. (2017b). Zygmunt Bauman: Die Angst vor den anderen. _Widerspruch_, _70_, 164–168.
• Erz, H. (2017c, September 15). _Terrorismus und der War on Terror_ \[Thesis\]. 6. Studentischer Soziologiekongress, TU Chemnitz.
• Erz, H. (2018a). Karl Marx und das digitale Zeitalter. In _Klasse, Kapital und Revolution. 200 Jahre Marx_ (pp. 145–156). Dietz.
• Erz, H. (2018b, May 30). _Profiteure der Globalisierung_ \[Lecture\]. BIMUN/SINUB Lecture Series, University of Bonn.
• Erz, H. (2018d, October 23). The Free Internet is an Illusion. _New Socialist_. https://newsocialist.org.uk/the-free-internet-is-an-illusion/
• Erz, H. (2018e, November 28). _Not all Democracies are Created Equal. Ein Demokratievergleich mittels Riots als Stasis_ \[Vortrag\]. BIMUN/SINUB Lecture Series, Universität Bonn.
• Schulz, A., Erz, H., & Riedl, V. (2019). How to make a Soziologiemagazin. _Soziologiemagazin_, _12_(2), Article 2. https://www.budrich-journals.de/index.php/Soz/article/view/34496
• Erz, H. (2019a). Der lange Schatten von Gustave Le Bon. Zum sprachlichen Einfluss der Crowd Science auf die Soziologie der Gewalt. _Soziologiemagazin_, _2019_(2), 71–88. https://doi.org/10.3224/soz.v12i2.06
• Erz, H. (2019b, October). Rezension zu Neoliberalismus — Wie alles anfing: Das Walter Lippmann Kolloquium, verfasst von Hendrik Erz \[Review\]. _Soziologieblog_. https://soziologieblog.hypotheses.org/12990
• Erz, H. (2020a). _Künstliche Intelligenz und Daten: Eine Evaluation softwarebasierter militärischer Informationsgewinnung_ (Research Report No. 4). IFSH.
• Erz, H. (2020b). Operative Porträts: Eine Bildgeschichte der Identifizierbarkeit von Lavater bis Facebook. Von Roland Meyer. _Soziologiemagazin_, _01/2020_, 75–81. https://doi.org/10.3224/soz.v13i1.07
• Erz, H. (2020c). The Status Quo is a Dystopian Nightmare. _Engagée_, _9_, 20–25.

Miscellaneous

I am the webmaster for the International Network of Analytical Sociologists.

Apart from my professional sociological background and my pretty strong background in software development, I also make other things from time to time.

For instance, I once edited my own journal with some friends, I help a lot behind the mixing console and with networking, and I even produced an EP!

Last but not least, I am also an editor of the German academic journal Soziologiemagazin and responsible for review, public relations and all the computer-ish things in the background.

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