{"id":138,"date":"2010-12-17T11:27:41","date_gmt":"2010-12-17T11:27:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/12\/lets-hear-it-for-culturomics.html"},"modified":"2010-12-17T11:27:41","modified_gmt":"2010-12-17T11:27:41","slug":"lets-hear-it-for-culturomics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/12\/lets-hear-it-for-culturomics.html","title":{"rendered":"Let’s hear it for Culturomics!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fifteen billion printed words from 5.2 million books, or 4 percent of
\nall books published! Graphed and searchable! Thank you, Google! Thank
\nyou, Harvard!<\/p>\n

Why am I ecstatic? The project, reported<\/a> in the journal Science<\/i> yesterday and available<\/a>
\nfor the use of all, at once creates a new tool for cultural history
\n(dubbed “Culturomics”) and vastly facilitates one of the oldest (known
\nin German as Begriffsgeschichte<\/i>, or the history of concepts).
\nType in a word or phrase along with the dates you want, and you get a
\ngraph showing the percentage of its appearances in books printed at a
\ngiven time. Click on the time period, and you get a Google catalog of
\nthe actual appearances, with access to the texts themselves.<\/p>\n

This allows us both to assess the cultural impact of major concepts and
\nfigures over time, and  to trace and analyze with precision the
\nincidence and significance of lesser concepts and figures. The results
\ncan confirm or disconfirm general ideas about cultural history as well
\nas suggesting new areas of inquiry. They also make it possible to
\nclarify with almost alarming speed our understanding of how specific
\nideas and concepts came to the fore, and in what context. In the realm
\nof big religious categories, consider the following:<\/p>\n


\nChristian<\/a><\/b>:
\nIt peaks in the early 16th century when the Reformation is in full
\nthrottle; bounces around from the late 16th through the 17th during the
\nWars of Religion; sinks to low ebb during the 18th-century
\nEnlightenment; makes a major recovery in the first half of the 19th
\ncentury (i.e. the Second Great Awakening); thence declines until the
\nlatter part of 20th century (with a bump up for the “Eisenhower
\nRevival”); and now seems to be on the rise again. Pretty much what you’d
\nexpect.<\/p>\n

Protestant<\/a><\/b>:
\nThe big peak comes during the English Civil Wars of the 1640s.
\nThereafter, it hits a high point in 1850, sinks steadily into the 1930s,
\nand has held pretty constant since. Again, to be expected.<\/p>\n

Islam<\/b><\/a>: Steady growth over the past century, but why does the biggest jump come in the 1950s? And why the decline since 9\/11?<\/p>\n

Atheism<\/b><\/a>:
\nThe recent bump of interest is no surprise, but the real interest in
\nthe subject begins with the French Revolution, and persists through the
\nrevival of the 19th century. Call it evidence of the War Between Science
\nand Religion.<\/p>\n

Judaism<\/b><\/a>:
\nThere’s a steady rise from the beginning of the 19th through the end of
\nthe 20th centuries, with fin-de-siecle bumps, perhaps relating to (1)
\nimmigration and (2) Holocaust studies. But since 1996 there’s been a
\nnotable decline. How come? Secularism<\/b><\/a> shows a remarkable parallel: steady rise through the 20th century with a turnaround in 1996. Correlation or coincidence? (Update: <\/b>Holocaust<\/a> and Shoah<\/a> both peak in 1999.)<\/p>\n

This is, of course, the merest soupcon of how the database can be used. I’ll have more to say about it anon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fifteen billion printed words from 5.2 million books, or 4 percent of all books published! Graphed and searchable! Thank you, Google! Thank you, Harvard! Why am I ecstatic? The project, reported in the journal Science yesterday and available for the use of all, at once creates a new tool for cultural history (dubbed “Culturomics”) and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":222,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nLet's hear it for Culturomics! - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/12\/lets-hear-it-for-culturomics.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Let's hear it for Culturomics! - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Fifteen billion printed words from 5.2 million books, or 4 percent of all books published! Graphed and searchable! Thank you, Google! Thank you, Harvard! Why am I ecstatic? The project, reported in the journal Science yesterday and available for the use of all, at once creates a new tool for cultural history (dubbed “Culturomics”) and…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/12\/lets-hear-it-for-culturomics.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-12-17T11:27:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark Silk\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Let's hear it for Culturomics! - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/12\/lets-hear-it-for-culturomics.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Let's hear it for Culturomics! - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk","og_description":"Fifteen billion printed words from 5.2 million books, or 4 percent of all books published! Graphed and searchable! Thank you, Google! Thank you, Harvard! Why am I ecstatic? The project, reported in the journal Science yesterday and available for the use of all, at once creates a new tool for cultural history (dubbed “Culturomics”) and…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/12\/lets-hear-it-for-culturomics.html","og_site_name":"Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk","article_published_time":"2010-12-17T11:27:41+00:00","author":"Mark Silk","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/12\/lets-hear-it-for-culturomics.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/12\/lets-hear-it-for-culturomics.html","name":"Let's hear it for Culturomics! - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-12-17T11:27:41+00:00","dateModified":"2010-12-17T11:27:41+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/#\/schema\/person\/927f8b0a579506efe527e8e0967f519d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/12\/lets-hear-it-for-culturomics.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/12\/lets-hear-it-for-culturomics.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/12\/lets-hear-it-for-culturomics.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Let’s hear it for Culturomics!"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/","name":"Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk","description":"Beliefnet Voices","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/#\/schema\/person\/927f8b0a579506efe527e8e0967f519d","name":"Mark Silk","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c82\/c82eec82562775fad85f4a47e1a5fc4ax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c82\/c82eec82562775fad85f4a47e1a5fc4ax96.jpg","caption":"Mark Silk"},"description":"Mark Silk graduated from Harvard College in 1972 and earned his Ph.D. in medieval history from Harvard University in 1982. After teaching at Harvard in the Department of History and Literature for three years, he became editor of the Boston Review. In 1987 he joined the staff of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where he worked variously as a reporter, editorial writer and columnist. In 1996 he became the founding director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College and in 1998 founding editor of Religion in the News, a magazine published by the Center that examines how the news media handle religious subject matter. In 2005, he was named director of the Trinity College Program on Public Values, comprising both the Greenberg Center and a new Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture directed by Barry Kosmin. In 2007, he became Professor of Religion in Public Life at the College. Professor Silk is the author of Spiritual Politics: Religion and America Since World War II and Unsecular Media: Making News of Religion in America. He is co-editor of Religion by Region, an eight-volume series on religion and public life in the United States, and co-author of The American Establishment, Making Capitalism Work, and One Nation Divisible: How Regional Religious Differences Shape American Politics. In 2007 he inaugurated Spiritual Politics, a blog on religion and American political culture.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/author\/msilk"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}