The evolution of ideas

The Turing Test

The Turing test, a proposal for determining whether a computer can be considered “intelligent,” is one of the philosophical foundations of A.I. The test is still a subject of debate and the decisive texts that inform the exchange are on JSTOR.

Researchers can find “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” the original article in which Alan Turing first proposed the influential test, and follow the discourse to our present day.

Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism

The Origins of Totalitarianism is considered one of the best nonfiction books of the 20th century. Hannah Arendt is also among the most taught and influential political thinkers in the modern era.

With JSTOR’s complete archival coverage, researchers can explore Arendt’s difficult to find original articles that laid the foundation for the book years before its publication in 1951 and follow today’s analysis of her groundbreaking study.

• From the Dreyfus Affair to France Today, Hannah Arendt, Jewish Social Studies, July 1942
• Expansion and the Philosophy of Power, Hannah Arendt, The Sewanee Review, Oct.-Dec. 1946
• Hannah Arendt on Totalitarianism and Democracy, Hans Morgenthau, Social Research, Spring 1977
• The Three Phases of Arendt’s Theory of Totalitarianism, Roy T. Tsao, Social Research, Hannah Arendt’s “The Origins of Totalitarianism”: Fifty Years Later, Summer 2002

Explore further: totalitarianism, antisemitism, nazism, imperialism, political violence

Prospect Theory

Prospect theory describes how people decide between alternatives that involve risk and uncertainty. It assumes that individuals value losses and gains differently, and thus make decisions based on perceived gains rather than perceived losses.

Published in 1979, “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk” is a foundational paper in behavioral economics, with psychological insights that impact politics, international relations, and more. With JSTOR’s complete archival coverage for every journal, researchers can find the original article—which may not be available via other providers—and follow today’s analysis of this groundbreaking theory.

Eudora Welty

Researchers can explore an extensive portrait of the celebrated author Eudora Welty. Content ranges from her original fiction and nonfiction, presented in its original context, to reviews of her works by her contemporaries, to critiques that shed new light on Welty’s original stories.

• “Flowers for Marjorie” was one of Welty’s first published works, featured in a 1937 issue of Prairie Schooner.
• Ten years later, Welty’s debut novel Delta Fiction was reviewed by noted literary critic John Crowe Ransom in a 1946 issue of The Kenyon Review.
• The April 2009 issue of The Mississippi Quarterly again used “Flowers for Marjorie” as one of Welty’s works that illustrate how she revised the rituals of masculinity depicted in key modernist texts by men.

Explore further: american literature, feminist literary theory, feminist literary criticism, short stories

Thurgood Marshall

With JSTOR’s complete archival coverage, scholars can discover articles by Thurgood Marshall in the years immediately before the historic Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka case. These include his examination of efforts to achieve racial integration in schools through the courts and the protection of individual rights from oppression.

In addition to his own writings, scholars can also follow today’s discourse and analysis of Marshall’s far-reaching legacy.