Genealogies of Knowledge

Narrative

Corpora, or computer-readable collections of natural-language texts, are increasingly important in digital humanities research. One area where corpora are being applied is in the study of the historical evolution of key concepts in the humanities. With the explosion in the availability of modern and premodern texts in different languages in digital format, it is easier than ever to compile corpora in a number of different languages to conduct historical and linguistic research that traces the differential evolution of ideas over time and in different cultures.

This research is focused on quantifying and understanding how translation served as an important mediating process in the evolution of key scientific and political concepts from their birth in ancient Greece to their contemporary use in modern political and scientific discourse. This research has been applied to address questions in classical reception, environment and climate change, Middle East studies, gender studies and modern political thought.

Impact date	2016
Category of impact	Societal impacts, Cultural impacts, Political impacts