Words and stories are among our most valuable means of communication. Specialists in the Arts & Sciences community—classicists, comparative literature scholars, and, yes, even physicists—are looking at language and literature through new and varied lenses.

New words are born into our language—some last, some fade away. A pair of alumni physicists who work with large data sets measure the volume of new terms entering our lexicon and their life expectancy, with some surprising results.

Much valued ancient literature has survived over the centuries, but it is hard to access. A classicist on the CAS faculty is digitizing a library of ancient literature and poetry with English translations to make it available—and searchable—online.

The Western view of world literature traditionally has been quite narrow, focused primarily on Eurocentric and well-established works. In a new anthology, a CAS language and comparative literature professor includes a much broader range of literature that reaches far back in time and represents peoples and cultures from around the globe.