Scholars of conceptual history often study key concepts – words that are inescapable in the societal discussions yet ambiguous and imbued with contested meanings – such as “democracy”, “freedom” and “welfare”. The struggle to redefine them, conceptual historians argue, is a way to redefine social reality, legitimize goals, and point out the necessity of certain actions. Conceptual history has traditionally been conducted by using close reading methods and carefully studying what is perceived as important historical text sources. However, the rise of computational methods has added new tools to conceptual historians to gather, analyze, and visualize the architecture of concepts – its connections, semantic field, and diachronic change.
At this breakfast we return to the topic of conceptual history and computational methods. You find the titles of three reading texts below. You are not required to have read the texts to participate in the discussions.
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