Conference

How does technology interact with the crafting of history and shape our knowledge of the past? What impact does a particular political economy or mode of production have upon the practices of historians and the historical sensibilities of their communities? In this talk, I will introduce a set of research projects that consider these questions in a broad chronological frame, from the 1600s to the present. The first part of the talk will explore the role of the British East India Company and the India Office in the growth of the historical sciences in Britain, from the 1600s to the 1960s. In the second part of the talk, I will turn to the recent emergence of Large Language Model (LLM) AI, which, according to some, holds out the promise of an entirely new paradigm of engagement with the past. Drawing on the longer history of the political economy of history-making, I will critically examine such claims and open a discussion of how, as professional historians, we can or should be engaging with these new developments.

Jessica Ratcliff is an Associate Professor in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Cornwell University. She works on the history of science and technology and specializes in social and material approaches to the history of knowledge, with a focus on Britain and its former empire from the 17th through the 19th centuries.
Her most recent book, Monopolizing Knowledge: The East India Company and Britain’s Second Scientific Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2025) is about the East India Company’s role in the growth of science in Britain.