Litshop Presents, Milan Terlunen “The Theory We Keep Quoting: (Inter)Disciplinary History through Computational Analysis of JSTOR’s Corpus”

When: Tuesday, November 8th

Presented by: Milan Terlunen
Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Literature Section at MIT

Abstract: I am investigating the passages from theory texts that scholars keep quoting, and ask what they reveal about the big ideas that have shaped the humanities in the last half century. Theory today, I argue, lives on primarily through such quoted passages. Within JSTOR’s database of 12 million scholarly publications, I examine which exact words scholars have quoted again and again from theorists including Michel Foucault, Thomas Kuhn and Judith Butler, and how these patterns have varied over time and across disciplines. Based on my findings, I propose that frequently quoted theory passages play a crucial role in facilitating collective knowledge production, interdisciplinary connection and political contestation.​

Non-MIT community members may respond to this email for a Tim Ticket in order to get access to the building.

Image Description: Black and white text over black and white photo from JSTOR, Reading Room overview 1940s; behind it is a photo of white horizontal architectural rows/columns with gray shadows.