Skip to content
ITHAKA Labs home
Discovery Active

The JSTOR Understanding Series

With an ever-expanding collection of primary texts, the JSTOR Understanding Series links original works of culture and history to scholarship that quotes it.

Concept:

Pick a text and pick a passage. Instantly see all the articles and chapters in JSTOR quoting that passage. With an ever-expanding roster of primary texts, the JSTOR Understanding Series is a powerful new way to research cultural and historical texts.

Our work:

  1. Designed a new interaction that would work with a variety of texts (poetry, fiction, drama, etc.) and screen sizes. This design leveraged everything we learned from Understanding Shakespeare and Understanding the U.S. Constitution.
  2. Worked with Studies in English Literature to identify an initial collection of British literature from 1500-1900 (we are currently limited to out-of-copyright material).
  3. Worked with our Artstor colleagues to select images relevant to each title.
  4. Released the JSTOR Understanding Series on the JSTOR platform as a beta tool.

We continue to incubate the JSTOR Understanding Series, adding new texts and collections to make the collection more diverse and valuable.

Related content

Discovery Completed

Understanding Shakespeare

Pick a play. Click a line. Instantly see articles on JSTOR that quote that line. Developed in partnership with the Folger Shakespeare Library, Understanding Shakespeare showcases the potential of using a primary text as a portal into the scholarship about it.

Discovery Completed

Understanding the U.S. Constitution

Select an article, amendment or clause to see all the articles in JSTOR that quote or cite it. Understanding the U.S. Constitution leads you to a library of constitutional scholarship -- in your pocket.