Articuler histoire et informatique, enseignement et recherche : le PIREH de l’université Panthéon-Sorbonne

The Center for Computing in History (Pôle informatique de recherche et d’enseignement en histoire, PIREH) of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University is rooted in a tradition of using statistics and computer sciences in History since the creation of this university in 1971. This paper first presents the people involved in this field at Paris 1 in the 1970-1980s, their teaching, and their work (journals, software), by replacing them in the intellectual and technical context of the time. The creation of the PIREH in 1999 reinforced this movement and structured a curriculum based on the use of databases, text analysis and factorial analysis in History. Since the late 1990s, the activity of the PIREH is diversifying, in response to the development of the Web, to the availability of new and more accessible computing tools, and to several interdisciplinary collaborations. By retracing this history, one can better grasp the specific use the PIREH makes of computing for teaching and researching History.