Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences

Research Projects in the Humanities

Researchers in the Humanities at Caltech conduct ground-breaking research using novel techniques to produce new results that help change the way we think about history, art and ourselves. Whether they're employing brain scans to study aesthetics and ethics or scouring historical population records to revise conventional notions of demographics around the world, researchers are pushing the envelope of what is, and what can be, known.

• The Einstein Papers Project — a mammoth enterprise that will collect the entire corpus of Albert Einstein's writing under one roof, generating an estimated 29 volumes of correspondence, manuscripts, travel diaries and more — is the single most ambitious publishing venture in the history of 20th century science.

• With the construction of a brain imaging center at Caltech, a group of humanists led by Steven Quartz is teaming with social scientists and biologists to create the intellectual foundation of a new interdisciplinary science: a brain-based humanities.

• Were the Romantics really as revolutionary as most people assume? Kevin Gilmartin examines the historical evidence and concludes that the arts in late 18th century and 19th century Britain were remarkable more for their conservative zeal.