Abstract

Significant changes have been observed in recent decades towards developing more cross-disciplinary research in the humanities. One of the clearest examples of this tendency and what some found to be one of the most promising undertakings in contemporary academia is the growing area of cognitive humanities. Nevertheless, despite the theoretical and methodological advancements within specific subfields of cognitive humanities, very little has been said about the research field as a whole. This paper is a preliminary attempt to define the genealogy and the scope of cognitive humanities. In order to accomplish the research objective two diverging, yet complementary methodological strategies have been employed. The first, which may be called probing, involves a close reading analysis of cognitive humanities “self-histories” written by some of the most prominent scholars in the field. Thereby, I reconstruct those narratives put forward from within the research movement to indicate the internal dynamic of the field’s development. The second strategy utilizes the bibliometric analysis technique to identify those research currents and overall characteristics, which might have been omitted from a close-distance (probing) perspective. The data were collected from Web of Science (Arts & Humanities Citation Index) and subsequently analyzed and visualized through commercially available software (Sci2, Bibliometrix, Gephi). Data analysis was carried out, taking into account four properties: temporal, geospatial, topical, and network. As a result, a multilevel overview of the field of cognitive humanities has been provided.

Presenters

Bartosz Hamarowski
Student, PhD, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Kujawsko-pomorskie, Poland

Details

Presentation Type

Paper Presentation in a Themed Session

Theme

Critical Cultural Studies

KEYWORDS

Bibliometrics, Cognitive Humanities, Emerging Fields, Knowledge Structure, Post-disciplinarity

Digital Media

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