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Project

The Mechanics of Canon Formation and Knowledge Transmission from Graeco-Roman Antiquity (MECANO)

MECANO (The Mechanics of Canon Formation and the Transmission of Knowledge from Greco-Roman Antiquity) aims to advance our understanding of the mechanics of canon formation and knowledge transmission of ancient Greek and Latin texts. It will look at a) how texts, ideas or authors become canonical by being cited, translated, studied, imitated, excerpted, or compiled by later authors, and b) how such implicit canons have changed across time and space by being received in different cultural, intellectual and linguistic environments. To study the dynamics of canonicity from a longitudinal perspective, MECANO will combine qualitative approaches to intellectual history and reception studies with applications of digital and computational methods on extensive text corpora. Bringing together six universities and an array of academic and non-academic institutions interested in the topic of canonicity (publishers, museums, academies of sciences, national libraries, arts companies), as well as a centre for entrepreneurship and an ICT company, MECANO will create a training programme that responds to the need for historically conscious and digitally skilled Humanities PhDs.
Date:1 Mar 2024 →  Today
Keywords:Canon/canonicity, Knowledge transmission, Digital humanities, Intellectual history, Reception studies
Disciplines:Classical literature