The Typography of Knowledge: Graphic Form and the Shaping of Disciplines, Academic Identities and Concepts of ´Scientificallity´

Everything we read has a graphic form characteristic of its time. This also applies to academic texts. But what comes first – the form, or the science?

A text full of footnotes or bracketed references gives the impression of solid research, even if the references are faked.

This is because text appears as an image before we start reading, a mechanism which in turn explains something recently noticed in a research study – only one in ten can tell a news article from an advertisement.

Typography is a powerful means of expression even though, or perhaps because we are rarely aware of it.The study examines what Swedish humanities research has looked like in the past 70-years: Is it possible to create a new discipline by leaving the footnotes behind? What role do typographic guidelines play for students´ academic cultivation?

How is readability valued in relation to reference systems that blast texts with brackets?

Language and typography are the tools of the humanities scholar, but their free use is increasingly limited by templates and stylesheets. Does typography reflect the general influence of natural sciences and the culture of competition on the humanities?

The study traces the history of form of knowledge texts and analyses typography in relation to research policies and the publishing industry.

Its aim is to raise awareness of typography’s ability to produce meaning, of its function in scholarly work, and in the humanities’ position within academia and society at large.