Toward a Quantitative History of Data

We live in a time of data. Around us, tools for creating, storing, communicating, and manipulating data grow ever more sophisticated and ubiquitous. Yet, the cultural and intellectual frameworks that underlie our present data-saturated condition are old, and their histories illuminate important aspects of the present. In his lecture, Daniel Rosenberg will explore the long history of data, stretching back to the seventeenth century, emphasizing its foundations in early modernity. By tracing the historical concept of “data,” Rosenberg examines implications of new data-driven approaches in the humanities, and argues that even our contemporary self-understanding is mediated by data-analytic techniques.

An intellectual and cultural historian, Daniel Rosenberg writes on a wide variety of subjects, including the history of information since the eighteenth century. Rosenberg has held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Rutgers Center for the Critical Analysis of Contemporary Culture, the University of California Humanities Research Institute, the Princeton University Council of the Humanities, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, and Stanford Humanities Center, among others.

Please register by Friday, October 10.