Curated Research
When creating the website for the “Legacies of the Enlightenment” project, we were faced with a challenge: how do we divide our materials and resources in a way that is legible to visitors and would allow us to address such a vast topic, without recreating some of the most pernicious taxonomic practices of the Enlightenment? After an initial team meeting, we decided to create five groups that would serve as entry points into the materials. The groupings are meant as guides, not rules, as many of the materials do not fit easily into one single group. In order to avoid rigid taxonomies, we have adopted another common practice of enlightenment thinkers – one used handily by the editors of Diderot and D’Alembert’s famous Encyclopedia – cross-listing, known in the digital age as “tagging.”
Each entry has been tagged with a number of words or phrases relevant to the material. These may be people, places, time periods, or general fields of interest. Our list of tags was crafted relying on the expertise of each member of our team and is constantly evolving. You may use these tags to search the curated research or the teaching materials by typing commonly used words or phrases into the search bar at the top of this page. We have also compiled a list of commonly used tags below for your convenience.
