Database of dreams : the lost quest to catalog humanity / Rebecca Lemov.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lemov, Rebecca M. (Rebecca Maura), author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Kaplan, Bert, 1919-2006.

Kaplan, Bert.

Psychology--Data processing--History--20th century.

Psychology.

Psychology--Research--History--20th century.

Dreams--Data processing--History--20th century.

Dreams.

Sociology--Data processing--History--20th century.

Sociology.

Sociology--Research--History--20th century.

Big data--History--20th century.

Big data.

History.

Sociology--Research.

Sociology--Data processing.

Psychology--Research.

Psychology--Data processing.

Physical Description:

xii, 354 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New Haven ; London : Yale University Press 2015.

Summary:

Just a few years before the dawn of the digital age, Harvard psychologist Bert Kaplan set out to build the largest database of sociological information ever assembled. It was the mid-1950s, and social scientists were entranced by the human insights promised by Rorschach tests and other innovative scientific protocols. Kaplan, along with anthropologist A. I. Hallowell and a team of researchers, sought out a varied range of non-European subjects-among remote and non-literate peoples around the globe and elsewhere. Recording their dreams, stories, and innermost thoughts in a vast database, Kaplan envisioned future researchers accessing the data through the cutting-edge Readex machine. Almost immediately, however, technological developments and the obsolescence of the theoretical framework rendered the project irrelevant, and eventually it was forgotten. In a scrupulously researched and captivating new book, Rebecca Lemov recounts the story of Kaplan's quest and brings to light an informative and disturbing chapter in the prehistory of Big Data.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Paperwork of the Inner Self 15

Chapter 2 The Varieties of Not Belonging 44

Chapter 3 The Storage of the Very, Very Small 70

Chapter 4 Data Mining in Zuni 95

Chapter 5 Possible Future Worlds 116

Chapter 6 The Double Experiment 134

Chapter 7 "I Do Not Want Secrets.... I Only Want Your Dreams" 154

Chapter 8 Not Fade Away (A History of the Life History) 181

Chapter 9 New Encyclopedias Will Arise 208

Chapter 10 Brief Golden Age 228.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780300209525

0300209525

OCLC:

910504195