Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies

Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies is a research topic within Archeology. Science Explorer counts 18k research works in it since 1950. 10.7% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers explores various aspects of ancient magical practices and beliefs, including Gnosticism, Hermeticism, alchemy, astrology, Manichaeism, rituals, divination, cultural transmission, and religious syncretism.

Ancient Magic
Gnosticism
Hermeticism
Alchemy
Astrology
Manichaeism
Rituals
Divination
Cultural Transmission
Religious Syncretism

Research works: 18k
In the world top 10%: 1.9k
Top-10% rate: 10.7%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25: -3%
Largest producer: United States

Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies

Which countries lead Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies research?

By volume, the United States and France publish the most (670 and 454 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

1 United States 670 works
2 France 454 works
3 Italy 315 works
4 United Kingdom 304 works
5 Germany 252 works
6 Spain 164 works
7 Russia 122 works
8 Poland 106 works
9 Canada 78 works
10 Israel 70 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

United States670 · 26.4%France454 · 17.9%Italy315 · 12.4%United Kingdom304 · 12.0%6 others listed792 · 31.3%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies research?

By volume in 2022-now, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique publishes the most Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies research, followed by University of Oxford and Ca' Foscari University of Venice.

By volume, 2022-now

1 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 172 works
2 University of OxfordUnited Kingdom 45 works
3 Ca' Foscari University of VeniceItaly 44 works
4 Russian Academy of SciencesRussia 39 works
5 University of CambridgeUnited Kingdom 31 works
6 Universidad Complutense de MadridSpain 29 works
7 Sapienza University of RomeItaly 27 works
8 Université Paris Sciences et LettresFrance 26 works
9 Université Lille Nord de FranceFrance 23 works
10 KU LeuvenBelgium 21 works

Who are the leading researchers in Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies include George Davey Smith and Michel Foucault.

1 George Davey Smith United Kingdom 435k citations
2 Michel Foucault France 208k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies?

The most cited paper in Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies is "Fatal Charades: Roman Executions Staged as Mythological Enactments" (Kathleen M. Coleman, 1990), with 721 citations. Next come "Early Greek elegy, symposium and public festival" (556) and "Tombstones and Roman Family Relations in the Principate: Civilians, Soldiers and Slaves" (484).

Most cited papers
#	Paper	Released	Citations
1	Fatal Charades: Roman Executions Staged as Mythological Enactments Kathleen M. Coleman · The Journal of Roman Studies	Nov 1990	721
2	Early Greek elegy, symposium and public festival E. L. Bowie · The Journal of Hellenic Studies	Nov 1986	556
3	Tombstones and Roman Family Relations in the Principate: Civilians, Soldiers and Slaves Richard Saller, Brent Donald Shaw · The Journal of Roman Studies	Nov 1984	484
4	What Do Objects Want? Chris Gosden · Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory	30 Aug 2005	431
5	Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine Herbert A. Deane, R. A. Markus · The American Historical Review	Oct 1971	397

All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies research done?

The largest centres of Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies research in 2022-now are Paris (France), Rome (Italy), Moscow (Russia) and Madrid (Spain). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Venice, Nanterre and Lyon.

Largest cities, 2022-now

1 ParisFrance 155 works
2 RomeItaly 61 works
3 MoscowRussia 55 works
4 MadridSpain 55 works
5 OxfordUnited Kingdom 49 works
6 LondonUnited Kingdom 46 works
7 LyonFrance 44 works
8 VeniceItaly 44 works
9 New YorkUnited States 37 works
10 ViennaAustria 36 works

Where it is the local speciality

VeniceIT · 44.3 works39×
NanterreFR · 26.4 works26×
LyonFR · 44.4 works14×

← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies than the world average.

See Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies on the map

Where is the best place to study Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies?

Among universities, judged by research, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge and Ca' Foscari University of Venice score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged

40%

Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share

10%

Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale

30%

Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%

10%

Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad

10%

Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.

#	University	Score	Top 10%	Specialisation	Works	Growth
1	University of OxfordUnited Kingdom	93.7	15.5%	10.1×	45	+17.7%
2	University of CambridgeUnited Kingdom	79.9	12.8%	8.4×	31	-7.7%
3	Ca' Foscari University of VeniceItaly	72.8	9.8%	58.6×	44	+129.0%
4	University of EdinburghUnited Kingdom	68.4	15.5%	7.3×	20	-5.7%
5	University of AmsterdamNetherlands	68.4	12.8%	5.6×	10	+38.8%
6	University of ViennaAustria	66.7	11.6%	12.8×	20	+62.2%
7	University of WürzburgGermany	65.4	17.9%	9.8×	10	+7.3%
8	Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität MünchenGermany	64.6	11.9%	6.4×	18	+30.9%
9	National and Kapodistrian University of AthensGreece	64.6	12.6%	9.4×	15	+75.4%
10	Sapienza University of RomeItaly	63.7	9.0%	7.4×	27	+43.8%
11	University of MünsterGermany	62.3	17.8%	7.5×	10	+105.7%
12	Universidad Complutense de MadridSpain	61.5	10.5%	10.5×	29	+58.5%
13	Hebrew University of JerusalemIsrael	61.2	13.2%	10.4×	17	-19.8%
14	Aristotle University of ThessalonikiGreece	61.0	11.0%	5.9×	9	+86.0%
15	University of ExeterUnited Kingdom	60.8	7.8%	14.7×	19	+0.3%
16	KU LeuvenBelgium	60.6	14.5%	7.1×	21	-32.8%
17	Université Paris Sciences et LettresFrance	60.5	8.7%	21.9×	26	+2.9%
18	Ghent UniversityBelgium	59.9	16.2%	3.4×	8	+79.0%
19	Durham UniversityUnited Kingdom	59.4	18.4%	9.2×	11	-48.9%
20	University of BolognaItaly	58.3	13.5%	6.5×	17	+10.3%
21	University College LondonUnited Kingdom	58.0	18.4%	2.6×	13	-14.0%
22	University of GroningenNetherlands	56.3	15.7%	4.2×	9	-29.3%
23	University of FribourgSwitzerland	55.5	13.1%	24.0×	11	+15.7%
24	Tel Aviv UniversityIsrael	55.2	18.8%	4.5×	11	-51.1%
25	University of ChicagoUnited States	54.6	11.0%	5.2×	14	+2.6%
26	Université Lille Nord de FranceFrance	53.9	6.5%	18.0×	23	+44.2%
27	Trinity College DublinIreland	52.7	18.8%	6.1×	8	-12.7%
28	Jagiellonian UniversityPoland	52.5	17.8%	6.5×	14	+6.0%
29	Aarhus UniversityDenmark	52.1	23.7%	3.2×	9	-19.9%
30	Université Toulouse - Jean JaurèsFrance	51.5	6.1%	45.1×	20	+100.0%
31	University of Notre DameUnited States	49.5	8.6%	15.2×	14	-18.5%
32	University of PaduaItaly	48.2	12.4%	3.6×	9	+0.5%
33	University of TorontoCanada	48.0	10.3%	2.3×	15	-11.3%
34	Columbia UniversityUnited States	46.6	13.0%	2.4×	8	-16.1%
35	Humboldt-Universität zu BerlinGermany	46.5	11.5%	9.0×	10	-6.3%
36	University of TübingenGermany	46.4	7.9%	9.1×	12	+108.0%
37	Sorbonne UniversitéFrance	45.2	2.7%	7.7×	16	+29.1%
38	Freie Universität BerlinGermany	45.0	11.1%	8.9×	12	-52.6%
39	The University of SydneyAustralia	45.0	13.9%	2.5×	10	-15.8%
40	Boston CollegeUnited States	44.6	9.8%	18.7×	9	+53.0%
41	Radboud University NijmegenNetherlands	36.5	5.1%	4.6×	9	-11.0%
42	University of ZurichSwitzerland	30.1	9.9%	3.7×	8	-30.6%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies, country by country

Is Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 3% lower than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2021.

grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.015% in 2024.

Fractional works of Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

Discussion

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Which countries lead Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies research?

By volume, 2022-now

How concentrated that is

Which institutions lead Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies research?

By volume, 2022-now

Who are the leading researchers in Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies?

What are the most cited papers in Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies?

Where is Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies research done?

Largest cities, 2022-now

Where it is the local speciality

Where is the best place to study Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies?

Is Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies research growing?

Its share of all research

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Which topics inside it are moving

Related research

Discussion