Ambix Special Issue on “Computational Approaches to the Histories of Alchemy and Chemistry”

This special issue negotiates the opportunities, challenges and responsibilities involved in using computational methods for historical research.

In 2025–2026, I co-edited the *Ambix* Special Issue on “Computational Approaches to the Histories of Alchemy and Chemistry” together with Guillermo Restrepo and Farzad Mahootian. The project was catalysed by the wonderful May 2025 NYU Abu Dhabi workshop, *The Alchemy of Global Partnerships*, convened by Farzad Mahootian. It explores computational approaches to these fields while also reflecting more broadly on the role of computational methods in historiography, including their challenges, opportunities, epistemic horizons, and epistemic responsibilities (Mahootian et al., 2026). In the epilogue (Lang, 2026), I examine whether a computational history of science currently exists as a distinct field. I argue that it does not yet exist in a fully developed form, but I outline the conditions that would be necessary for it to emerge as a recognised sub-discipline. Beyond my involvement in writing the introduction and epilogue, the special issue also includes two of my own contributions on alchemical dictionaries. One investigates Arabic terminology, leveraging LLMs for a hybrid close and distant reading, with the aim of contributing to a more global history of alchemy and chemistry (Lang et al., 2026). At the same time, we also critically assess the potential risks associated with using large language models for Arabic, a language that is not among the dominant Western languages on which many such models are primarily trained (Lang et al., 2026). The second study performs distributional semantics and tracks the provenance of Ruland's terms across an earlier corpus (Kaše & Lang, 2026). In a related project, we have also explored the semantic abilities of LLMs for metaphor detection (Kaše et al., 2025).

References

2026

  1. Introduction: Computational Approaches to the Histories of Alchemy and Chemistry
    Farzad Mahootian, Sarah Lang, and Guillermo Restrepo
    Ambix, 2026
    Forthcoming
  2. Epilogue: A Computational Turn? Digital and Computational History of Science, Knowledge and Technology
    Sarah Lang
    Ambix, 2026
    Forthcoming
  3. Mediating Alchemical Language across Terminologies and Cultures in Ruland’s Lexicon Alchemiae: A Data-Driven Study of Arabic Terms
    Sarah Lang, Farzad Mahootian, and Hazem Lashen
    Ambix, 2026
    Forthcoming
  4. Confabulated Transliterations? Managing the Lure of Plausibility in LLM-Detected Arabic Terms in an Early Modern Lexicon
    Sarah Lang, Jonas Müller-Laackmann, Hazem Lashen, and 1 more author
    In Critical Approaches to Automated Text Recognition, 2026
    Forthcoming
  5. Contextual Word Embeddings for Paracelsian Lexicography: Tangled Terminologies and Their Origins in Ruland’s Alchemical Dictionary
    Vojtěch Kaše and Sarah Lang
    Ambix, 2026
    Forthcoming

2025

  1. Embedded in the Labyrinth: Investigating Latin Word Senses through Transformer-Based Contextual Embeddings and Attention
    Vojtěch Kaše, Sarah Lang, and Petr Pavlas
    In Proceedings of the Computational Humanities Research Conference 2025, 2025
    DOI