charting academic fashions

Peter Erdélyi at ANTHEM gives samples from a Google tool USEFUL FOR CHARTING THE RISE AND FALL OF ACADEMIC FASHIONS.

Interesting things I found while playing with this…

*Heidegger and Whitehead were neck in neck until about 1982, when Heidegger steeply ascended away from Whitehead. Whitehead has remained remarkably consistent, but Heidegger skyrocketed in the early 1980’s, peaking from around 1992-1997.

*Run Bergson from 1900 to 2010. Interesting. He peaked impressively around 1915, descending measurably until the time of his death in 1941, then experienced a slower decline between 1965 and 1980. There was a minor upsurge from the mid-1990’s. I would presume that’s Deleuze’s doing, but it’s small enough that it could be statistical noise.

*Try Friedrich Nietzsche from his birthdate, 1844, until 2010. There’s a first spike in English around WWI, then a collapse, then a general pattern of growth peaking in the late 1990’s.

*In the “flash in the pan” category, try Victor Farias from 1980 to 2010 and see what you get.

*Surprisingly steady climb: Sigmund Freud, 1900-2000.