Re-Imagining the Cambridge School in the Age of Digital Humanities

Posted: 13 May 2016

See all articles by Jennifer London

Jennifer London

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - Department of Political Science

Date Written: May 2016

Abstract

Recent work on the history of political thought, exploiting digital resources, is challenging the idea that empirically and hermeneutically minded political scientists must work independently in silos. Work by students of the Cambridge School and work by textual data miners are showing the way toward a new hermeneutical circle — one in which empirically and hermeneutically minded political scientists can use digital resources to analyze diverse texts and make groundbreaking discoveries on relationships between textual uses of language and political change. I analyze this new trend toward different sorts of political scientists using digital resources to study ideas, to outline underlying paradigms relating language and politics in these respective fields, and to consider how they could be brought into productive conversation. I then consider how such conversation would enrich subdisciplinary understandings of the role of language in politics. Ultimately, I use this analysis to generate a broader model for how empirically and hermeneutically inclined political scientists can benefit from collaboration in the age of digital humanities.

Suggested Citation

London, Jennifer, Re-Imagining the Cambridge School in the Age of Digital Humanities (May 2016). Annual Review of Political Science, Vol. 19, pp. 351-373, 2016, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2779565 or http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-061513-115924

Jennifer London (Contact Author)

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - Department of Political Science ( email )

405 Hilgard Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1472
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Abstract Views
214
PlumX Metrics