Oscar Stuhler
@oms279.bsky.social
Assistant Professor of Sociology at Northwestern
Culture, political sociology, NLP, social networks, computational social science
oscarstuhler.org
Culture, political sociology, NLP, social networks, computational social science
oscarstuhler.org
Pinned
Oscar Stuhler
@oms279.bsky.social
· May 7
NEW ARTICLE: Want to use LLMs to extract information at scale in sociology? @eollion.bsky.social @oms279.bsky.social and C. Ton have you covered. Read "From Codebooks to Promptbooks," now in Sociological Methods & Research
doi.org/10.1177/0049...
(Preprint @socarxiv.bsky.social: osf.io/wjvfq_v1)
doi.org/10.1177/0049...
(Preprint @socarxiv.bsky.social: osf.io/wjvfq_v1)
Now out in Sociological Methods & Research
We argue that one of the most important use cases of generative LLMs for social scientists is transforming unstructured content into structured data.
Our article shows how to do that — and what can go wrong.
We argue that one of the most important use cases of generative LLMs for social scientists is transforming unstructured content into structured data.
Our article shows how to do that — and what can go wrong.
Reposted by Oscar Stuhler
Wrote a short piece arguing that higher ed must help steer AI. TLDR: If we outsource this to tech, we outsource our whole business. But rejectionism is basically stalling. If we want to survive, schools themselves must proactively shape AI for education & research. [1/6, unpaywalled at 5/6] +
Opinion | AI Is the Future. Higher Ed Should Shape It.
If we want to stay at the forefront of knowledge production, we must fit technology to our needs.
www.chronicle.com
November 4, 2025 at 7:55 PM
Wrote a short piece arguing that higher ed must help steer AI. TLDR: If we outsource this to tech, we outsource our whole business. But rejectionism is basically stalling. If we want to survive, schools themselves must proactively shape AI for education & research. [1/6, unpaywalled at 5/6] +
Reposted by Oscar Stuhler
For us, this journey toward explaining *surprising macro outcomes* took many years. Grateful to my amazing co-authors, @martinarvidsson.bsky.social and Peter Hedström, and to all the reviewers who supported us along the way
🚀Out now: sociologicalscience.com/articles-v12...
🚀Out now: sociologicalscience.com/articles-v12...
October 24, 2025 at 2:04 PM
For us, this journey toward explaining *surprising macro outcomes* took many years. Grateful to my amazing co-authors, @martinarvidsson.bsky.social and Peter Hedström, and to all the reviewers who supported us along the way
🚀Out now: sociologicalscience.com/articles-v12...
🚀Out now: sociologicalscience.com/articles-v12...
Reposted by Oscar Stuhler
@ckreudersonnen.bsky.social and I are happy to announce two open research positions in our joint DFG-funded project VARICRIS (👉 bit.ly/varicris).
We are recruiting a #PostDoc and a #PhD candidate 🧵:
#PoliSky #PoliSkyJobs #polsci 🌐
We are recruiting a #PostDoc and a #PhD candidate 🧵:
#PoliSky #PoliSkyJobs #polsci 🌐
Welcome! – VARICRIS
VARICRIS research project
bit.ly
October 22, 2025 at 2:40 PM
@ckreudersonnen.bsky.social and I are happy to announce two open research positions in our joint DFG-funded project VARICRIS (👉 bit.ly/varicris).
We are recruiting a #PostDoc and a #PhD candidate 🧵:
#PoliSky #PoliSkyJobs #polsci 🌐
We are recruiting a #PostDoc and a #PhD candidate 🧵:
#PoliSky #PoliSkyJobs #polsci 🌐
Reposted by Oscar Stuhler
🇫🇷 We are hiring 🇫🇷
Assistant or Associate Professor Position in Computational Sociology @crestsociology.bsky.social @ipparis.bsky.social
Details here (please RT)
www.shorturl.at/E57le
Assistant or Associate Professor Position in Computational Sociology @crestsociology.bsky.social @ipparis.bsky.social
Details here (please RT)
www.shorturl.at/E57le
October 20, 2025 at 2:40 PM
🇫🇷 We are hiring 🇫🇷
Assistant or Associate Professor Position in Computational Sociology @crestsociology.bsky.social @ipparis.bsky.social
Details here (please RT)
www.shorturl.at/E57le
Assistant or Associate Professor Position in Computational Sociology @crestsociology.bsky.social @ipparis.bsky.social
Details here (please RT)
www.shorturl.at/E57le
Reposted by Oscar Stuhler
There is one week left to apply to join us at Rutgers! We're hiring an Assistant Professor in Computational Sociology as part of a cluster of new hires in data science and AI.
Applications are due next Wednesday, 10/15.
Applications are due next Wednesday, 10/15.
Assistant Professor in Computational Sociology
The Department of Sociology at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, seeks applications for a tenure-track position at the Assistant Professor level specializing in Computational Sociology. The search i...
jobs.rutgers.edu
October 9, 2025 at 2:11 PM
There is one week left to apply to join us at Rutgers! We're hiring an Assistant Professor in Computational Sociology as part of a cluster of new hires in data science and AI.
Applications are due next Wednesday, 10/15.
Applications are due next Wednesday, 10/15.
Reposted by Oscar Stuhler
Come work with us @crestsociology.bsky.social
We are looking for a post-doc with a background in social sciences, interested in NLP and in media & journalism studies.
Details here: www.css.cnrs.fr/post-doctora...
We are looking for a post-doc with a background in social sciences, interested in NLP and in media & journalism studies.
Details here: www.css.cnrs.fr/post-doctora...
Post-Doctoral Position – Media / Journalism – CSS @ IP-Paris
Site web de l'axe sciences sociales computationnelles du CREST-CNRS. Cours et tutoriels pour l'analyse des données numériques en sciences sociales.
www.css.cnrs.fr
September 23, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Come work with us @crestsociology.bsky.social
We are looking for a post-doc with a background in social sciences, interested in NLP and in media & journalism studies.
Details here: www.css.cnrs.fr/post-doctora...
We are looking for a post-doc with a background in social sciences, interested in NLP and in media & journalism studies.
Details here: www.css.cnrs.fr/post-doctora...
Reposted by Oscar Stuhler
Do streaming platforms trap us in cultural filter bubbles? We like to think so but the evidence says otherwise. In a new paper @abelaussant.bsky.social and I find the use of streaming platform to be associated with an increase in consumption diversity. sociologicalscience.com/articles-v12...
September 5, 2025 at 8:40 AM
Do streaming platforms trap us in cultural filter bubbles? We like to think so but the evidence says otherwise. In a new paper @abelaussant.bsky.social and I find the use of streaming platform to be associated with an increase in consumption diversity. sociologicalscience.com/articles-v12...
Reposted by Oscar Stuhler
👉 Stories about economic change are never neutral. They make politics. In my new article in Sociological Theory @sociologicaltheory.bsky.social, I show how narratives about economic disruption become a source of legitimacy:
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
September 1, 2025 at 8:48 AM
👉 Stories about economic change are never neutral. They make politics. In my new article in Sociological Theory @sociologicaltheory.bsky.social, I show how narratives about economic disruption become a source of legitimacy:
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Reposted by Oscar Stuhler
A nice discovery today: #ic2s2 keynotes are on Youtube! In particular, I think the papers listed by @lauraknelson.bsky.social in her keynote could form a great list for a CSS reading group.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXYg...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXYg...
Laura Nelson: Qualitative Methods for Computational Social Science — IC2S2 2025 Keynote
YouTube video by Institute for Analytical Sociology
www.youtube.com
August 12, 2025 at 12:58 AM
A nice discovery today: #ic2s2 keynotes are on Youtube! In particular, I think the papers listed by @lauraknelson.bsky.social in her keynote could form a great list for a CSS reading group.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXYg...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXYg...
Now out in Social Networks
Network analysis aspires to be “anticategorical,” yet its basic units—relationships—are usually readily categorized ('friendship,' 'love'). Thus, a nontrivial cultural typification is asserted in the very building blocks of most network analyses.
doi.org/10.1016/j.so...
Network analysis aspires to be “anticategorical,” yet its basic units—relationships—are usually readily categorized ('friendship,' 'love'). Thus, a nontrivial cultural typification is asserted in the very building blocks of most network analyses.
doi.org/10.1016/j.so...
August 7, 2025 at 2:22 PM
Now out in Social Networks
Network analysis aspires to be “anticategorical,” yet its basic units—relationships—are usually readily categorized ('friendship,' 'love'). Thus, a nontrivial cultural typification is asserted in the very building blocks of most network analyses.
doi.org/10.1016/j.so...
Network analysis aspires to be “anticategorical,” yet its basic units—relationships—are usually readily categorized ('friendship,' 'love'). Thus, a nontrivial cultural typification is asserted in the very building blocks of most network analyses.
doi.org/10.1016/j.so...
Reposted by Oscar Stuhler
I’m delighted to share that the August 2025 special issue of Sociological Methods & Research on Generative AI is out now. Along with my co-editor, Daniel Karell, we put together this issue to build on the conference we organized last year.
Here's a thread on each of the ten papers:
Here's a thread on each of the ten papers:
August 1, 2025 at 2:54 PM
I’m delighted to share that the August 2025 special issue of Sociological Methods & Research on Generative AI is out now. Along with my co-editor, Daniel Karell, we put together this issue to build on the conference we organized last year.
Here's a thread on each of the ten papers:
Here's a thread on each of the ten papers:
Reposted by Oscar Stuhler
My paper on the emergence and structure of the first American party system of the 1790s just came out in the American Sociological Review.
doi.org/10.1177/0003...
doi.org/10.1177/0003...
The State and the Emergence of the First American Party System: Roll Call Voting in the New York State Assembly during the Early Republic - Benjamin Rohr, John Levi Martin, 2025
Prevailing theories about the nature and development of the democratic party system fail to account for the important case of the United States. Using a novel d...
doi.org
July 18, 2025 at 2:55 PM
My paper on the emergence and structure of the first American party system of the 1790s just came out in the American Sociological Review.
doi.org/10.1177/0003...
doi.org/10.1177/0003...
Reposted by Oscar Stuhler
Want to access the slides and the notebook for this session on LLM for Content Analysis in the Social Sciences? Here they are! www.css.cnrs.fr/llm-power-to....
Information about Text classification; Information Extraction, Text Clustering with encoders and decoder models.
Information about Text classification; Information Extraction, Text Clustering with encoders and decoder models.
July 21, 2025 at 12:40 PM
Want to access the slides and the notebook for this session on LLM for Content Analysis in the Social Sciences? Here they are! www.css.cnrs.fr/llm-power-to....
Information about Text classification; Information Extraction, Text Clustering with encoders and decoder models.
Information about Text classification; Information Extraction, Text Clustering with encoders and decoder models.
Reposted by Oscar Stuhler
🤔 The #EU 🇪🇺 aspires to be a global actor 🌍 — but do other states recognize it as such?
My new study in @intlinteractions.bsky.social develops targeted #NLP / #TextAsData tools to analyze 50 years of foreign policy discourse in the annual #UN General Debate (1970–2020).
A thread (1/n)
My new study in @intlinteractions.bsky.social develops targeted #NLP / #TextAsData tools to analyze 50 years of foreign policy discourse in the annual #UN General Debate (1970–2020).
A thread (1/n)
July 16, 2025 at 7:57 AM
🤔 The #EU 🇪🇺 aspires to be a global actor 🌍 — but do other states recognize it as such?
My new study in @intlinteractions.bsky.social develops targeted #NLP / #TextAsData tools to analyze 50 years of foreign policy discourse in the annual #UN General Debate (1970–2020).
A thread (1/n)
My new study in @intlinteractions.bsky.social develops targeted #NLP / #TextAsData tools to analyze 50 years of foreign policy discourse in the annual #UN General Debate (1970–2020).
A thread (1/n)
Reposted by Oscar Stuhler
New this morning, a Comment I contributed to Nature Computational Science on the interaction between large language models and the humanities. 🧪 🤖 #MLSky
rdcu.be/etk07
The link above will be open-access for a month — plus, I'll reply to this post with a link to a permanently open preprint. +
rdcu.be/etk07
The link above will be open-access for a month — plus, I'll reply to this post with a link to a permanently open preprint. +
The impact of language models on the humanities and vice versa
Nature Computational Science - Many humanists are skeptical of language models and concerned about their effects on universities. However, researchers with a background in the humanities are also...
rdcu.be
June 25, 2025 at 12:58 PM
New this morning, a Comment I contributed to Nature Computational Science on the interaction between large language models and the humanities. 🧪 🤖 #MLSky
rdcu.be/etk07
The link above will be open-access for a month — plus, I'll reply to this post with a link to a permanently open preprint. +
rdcu.be/etk07
The link above will be open-access for a month — plus, I'll reply to this post with a link to a permanently open preprint. +
Reposted by Oscar Stuhler
I am thrilled to share a new article in Sociological Methods & Research, “Quantifying Narrative Similarity Across Languages”. My co-first author Sol Messing and our collaborators developed a new approach to measuring “narrative similarity” between texts: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Quantifying Narrative Similarity Across Languages - Hannah Waight, Solomon Messing, Anton Shirikov, Margaret E. Roberts, Jonathan Nagler, Jason Greenfield, Megan A. Brown, Kevin Aslett, Joshua A. Tuck...
How can one understand the spread of ideas across text data? This is a key measurement problem in sociological inquiry, from the study of how interest groups sh...
journals.sagepub.com
June 18, 2025 at 3:56 PM
I am thrilled to share a new article in Sociological Methods & Research, “Quantifying Narrative Similarity Across Languages”. My co-first author Sol Messing and our collaborators developed a new approach to measuring “narrative similarity” between texts: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Reposted by Oscar Stuhler
Recruiting one full time or several part time RA at @crestsociology.bsky.social in Paris (well, almost in Paris) for next year to work on the evaluation of cultural items crest.science/wp-content/u...
crest.science
June 12, 2025 at 3:59 PM
Recruiting one full time or several part time RA at @crestsociology.bsky.social in Paris (well, almost in Paris) for next year to work on the evaluation of cultural items crest.science/wp-content/u...
Reposted by Oscar Stuhler
New NEH-supported tutorial on running LLMs locally with ollama! Your laptop is more powerful than you think. Save money, privacy, and energy.
aiforhumanists.com/tutorials/
aiforhumanists.com/tutorials/
Code Tutorials
The AI for Humanists project is developing resources to enable DH scholars to explore how large language models and AI technologies can be used in their research and teaching. Find an annotated biblio...
aiforhumanists.com
June 10, 2025 at 5:18 PM
New NEH-supported tutorial on running LLMs locally with ollama! Your laptop is more powerful than you think. Save money, privacy, and energy.
aiforhumanists.com/tutorials/
aiforhumanists.com/tutorials/
Reposted by Oscar Stuhler
Had a blast working on this paper with Christina Pao, @chrisajulian.bsky.social, @drcompton.bsky.social, and Lawrence Stacey, in which we combed through the HPS to identify demographic differences between groups based on gender identity question responses. sociologicalscience.com/articles-v12...
Demographic Differences in Responses to a Two-Step Gender Identity Measure
Article: Demographic Differences in Responses to a Two-Step Gender Identity Measure | Sociological Science | Posted May 6, 2025
sociologicalscience.com
May 13, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Had a blast working on this paper with Christina Pao, @chrisajulian.bsky.social, @drcompton.bsky.social, and Lawrence Stacey, in which we combed through the HPS to identify demographic differences between groups based on gender identity question responses. sociologicalscience.com/articles-v12...
Reposted by Oscar Stuhler
We are hiring postdocs in Computational Social Science
📍SweCSS, Norrköping, Sweden
⏰Deadline June 3
🔗https://liu.se/en/work-at-liu/vacancies/26854
Please apply // help us spread the word
📍SweCSS, Norrköping, Sweden
⏰Deadline June 3
🔗https://liu.se/en/work-at-liu/vacancies/26854
Please apply // help us spread the word
May 13, 2025 at 12:47 PM
We are hiring postdocs in Computational Social Science
📍SweCSS, Norrköping, Sweden
⏰Deadline June 3
🔗https://liu.se/en/work-at-liu/vacancies/26854
Please apply // help us spread the word
📍SweCSS, Norrköping, Sweden
⏰Deadline June 3
🔗https://liu.se/en/work-at-liu/vacancies/26854
Please apply // help us spread the word
Reposted by Oscar Stuhler
Do you field online surveys and experiments? Ever get back text responses that look unusually diplomatic and polished?
In this paper, now out at Sociological Methods & Research, we study the emerging use of AI among online study participants.
In this paper, now out at Sociological Methods & Research, we study the emerging use of AI among online study participants.
May 7, 2025 at 3:32 PM
Do you field online surveys and experiments? Ever get back text responses that look unusually diplomatic and polished?
In this paper, now out at Sociological Methods & Research, we study the emerging use of AI among online study participants.
In this paper, now out at Sociological Methods & Research, we study the emerging use of AI among online study participants.
Reposted by Oscar Stuhler
New paper out in Social Science History about elite networks in the American administrative state
doi.org/10.1017/ssh....
doi.org/10.1017/ssh....
Elite cohesion in the American administrative state, 1898–1998 | Social Science History | Cambridge Core
Elite cohesion in the American administrative state, 1898–1998
doi.org
May 10, 2025 at 6:18 AM
New paper out in Social Science History about elite networks in the American administrative state
doi.org/10.1017/ssh....
doi.org/10.1017/ssh....
Now out in Sociological Methods & Research
We argue that one of the most important use cases of generative LLMs for social scientists is transforming unstructured content into structured data.
Our article shows how to do that — and what can go wrong.
We argue that one of the most important use cases of generative LLMs for social scientists is transforming unstructured content into structured data.
Our article shows how to do that — and what can go wrong.
NEW ARTICLE: Want to use LLMs to extract information at scale in sociology? @eollion.bsky.social @oms279.bsky.social and C. Ton have you covered. Read "From Codebooks to Promptbooks," now in Sociological Methods & Research
doi.org/10.1177/0049...
(Preprint @socarxiv.bsky.social: osf.io/wjvfq_v1)
doi.org/10.1177/0049...
(Preprint @socarxiv.bsky.social: osf.io/wjvfq_v1)
May 7, 2025 at 1:31 PM
Now out in Sociological Methods & Research
We argue that one of the most important use cases of generative LLMs for social scientists is transforming unstructured content into structured data.
Our article shows how to do that — and what can go wrong.
We argue that one of the most important use cases of generative LLMs for social scientists is transforming unstructured content into structured data.
Our article shows how to do that — and what can go wrong.
Reposted by Oscar Stuhler
Can we use language models to accurately represent the past? I still don't know. But we started to test this question in the paper below.
New preprint from @lauraknelson.bsky.social, @mattwilkens.bsky.social, and myself tests different ways of simulating the past with LLMs. We don't fully answer the title question here—just show that simple strategies based on prompting and fine-tuning are insufficient. +
Can Language Models Represent the Past without Anachronism?
Before researchers can use language models to simulate the past, they need to understand the risk of anachronism. We find that prompting a contemporary model with examples of period prose does not pro...
arxiv.org
May 2, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Can we use language models to accurately represent the past? I still don't know. But we started to test this question in the paper below.
Reposted by Oscar Stuhler
This is a fantastic oral history of the last 10 years of NLP and AI. www.quantamagazine.org/when-chatgpt...
When ChatGPT Broke an Entire Field: An Oral History | Quanta Magazine
Researchers in “natural language processing” tried to tame human language. Then came the transformer.
www.quantamagazine.org
May 1, 2025 at 11:55 AM
This is a fantastic oral history of the last 10 years of NLP and AI. www.quantamagazine.org/when-chatgpt...