The Encyclopedic Imaginary: History, Synchrony, and the Organization of Knowledge
Location
Janet Ayers Academic Center, JAAC 4094
Presentation Type
Presentation
Start Date
21-9-2018 11:00 AM
Description
What does it mean to represent, picture, or organize knowledge? In the era of extremely large data, we have become accustomed to visual techniques for presenting information that effectively depict, annotate, and even manipulate it, but these are contextually specific, topically limited, often visually homogeneous, and generally disconnected from the question of what it means to know in the first place. The complexity of knowledge and the plentitude of the limitless fields of data we confront have led us to abandon techniques for systematic and structural representation in favor of local interventions and ad hoc visual constructions. We tend to see the presentation of knowledge, in other words, as merely a technique for communication disconnected from the art of its discovery. Yet we are not the first to confront this sense of being overwhelmed by oceans of knowledge and our responses do not exhaust the field of its possibilities. Looking at early modern techniques for the structural, synchronic, and horizontal disposition and visual presentation of knowledge as well as the philosophical discussions connected with them, this paper investigates a handful of the more fascinating corners of past practices for knowledge organization that may help us critically consider its present and even, perhaps, its future.
Recommended Citation
Selcer, Daniel, "The Encyclopedic Imaginary: History, Synchrony, and the Organization of Knowledge" (2018). Humanities Symposium. 19.
https://repository.belmont.edu/humanities_symposium/2018/2018/19
The Encyclopedic Imaginary: History, Synchrony, and the Organization of Knowledge
Janet Ayers Academic Center, JAAC 4094
What does it mean to represent, picture, or organize knowledge? In the era of extremely large data, we have become accustomed to visual techniques for presenting information that effectively depict, annotate, and even manipulate it, but these are contextually specific, topically limited, often visually homogeneous, and generally disconnected from the question of what it means to know in the first place. The complexity of knowledge and the plentitude of the limitless fields of data we confront have led us to abandon techniques for systematic and structural representation in favor of local interventions and ad hoc visual constructions. We tend to see the presentation of knowledge, in other words, as merely a technique for communication disconnected from the art of its discovery. Yet we are not the first to confront this sense of being overwhelmed by oceans of knowledge and our responses do not exhaust the field of its possibilities. Looking at early modern techniques for the structural, synchronic, and horizontal disposition and visual presentation of knowledge as well as the philosophical discussions connected with them, this paper investigates a handful of the more fascinating corners of past practices for knowledge organization that may help us critically consider its present and even, perhaps, its future.
Comments
Convocation Credit: Society and the Arts and Sciences