A seminar hosted by CEFRES young researcher Mátyás Erdélyi
“Locomotive en grève” – une du journal satirique “Kakas Márton”, 24 avril 1904.
Department of Historical Sociology of the Faculty of Humanities (FHS UK). Open to BA and MA students.
Time & Venue: Tuesday 15:30-16:50, FHS UK Jinonice, building A, room 2083 Lecturer: Mátyás Erdélyi – CEU / CEFRES Language: English Contact: matyas.erdelyi@cefres.cz
Outline
The aim of the course is to familiarize students with the main topics and problem areas in the history of Central Europe in the long nineteenth century. The course follows a topical arrangement focusing on central themes at the intersection of social history and historical sociology; it is neither chronological, nor comprehensive. Each section starts with the presentation of basic theoretical concepts, followed by the discussion of selected readings. The course focuses on problem areas in connection with the social and economic changes that took place in Central Europe during the long nineteenth century. The key concept of our discussion is ‘modernization theory’ and the different facets of modernization understood as a process of social and economic change in the period under scrutiny. Here, instead of interpreting ‘modernization’ as a normative developmental model, the course demonstrates how modernization could be analyzed as a heterogeneous and non-linear process, which always infers the possibility of fallbacks, as the history of Central Europe demonstrates it, and contains a mixture of ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ elements.
Assessment
Active class participation, one in-class presentation on a chosen topic (ca. 10-15 minutes), a position paper based on the presentation (ca. 1500 words) at the end of the term.
Where & When: at CEFRES library, Na Florenci 3, on Thursdays 3 and 24 March, 7 and 21 April, and 5 May 2016, from 4:30 to 6 PM.
Convener: Filip Vostal (CEFRES & FLÚ AV ČR).
René Magritte, The treachery of images (This is not a pipe), oil on canvas, 1928-9
Whereas in the Epistemological Seminar I, we reflected upon various perspectives on interdisciplinarity in a broad theoretical sense, the present seminar series will be more ‘pragmatically’ and perhaps even practically oriented. Critically engaging with multiple commentaries raised in our discussions last semester, PhD students affiliated with CEFRES will explore selected themes through the grid of interdisciplinarity practice and/or discourse. This seminar thus accounts for unique milieu in which doctoral students are encouraged to articulate their own distinctive approach towards interdisciplinary and/or/through specific topics and research trajectories.
3 March 2016 (Edita Wolf) The Notion of Interdisciplinarity in The Postmodern Condition
While grand narratives constructed by the means of metaphysical philosophy legitimate the modern condition of knowledge, incredulity toward metanarratives characterizes the postmodern condition. In his seminal text, Jean-François Lyotard explores the process of de-legitimation of knowledge claims vis-à-vis the end of grand narratives and the parallel emergence of a new legitimation secured in terms of performance and efficiency in the field of knowledge production. The system of disciplines rooted in speculative discourse is thereby replaced by practice justifiable only by the principles of performance and efficiency. On the basis of Lyotard’s text a revision is needed in relation to contemporary debates on theory of interdisciplinarity, where interdisciplinarity becomes either a political exigency or a notion that should yield a deeper meaning to the present status of knowledge production. Thus interdisciplinarity seems to work as a substitute for the old philosophical notions that is detached from the actual workings of today’s science. A re-reading of The Postmodern Condition, that is of an announcement of the end of the discipline of philosophy by a philosopher, will bring us to a reflection on interdisciplinarity as a particular practice that would not necessarily entail construction of a discourse of legitimation.
Readings:
Jean-François Lyotard. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Translated by Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984 [1979]
Read the entire book or alternatively the introduction and pp.31-70.
24 March 2016 (Matyas Erdelyi) Inventing the Right Numbers: Social Statistics, Commercial Reason, and the Public Good
The present seminar session investigates how social statistics were created, comprehended, and used for commercial and public purposes in Dualist Hungary. It explores different modes of quantification, the inter- or pre-disciplinary sights of scientific production, and power relations between competing expert and nascent professions. Central to this line of inquiry is the investigation of relations between statisticians and other notables (i.e. every person worth of attention and involved in the debate, be it a politician, businessman, any type of scholar) inclined to claim authority over the creation and political/economic use of social statistics. This session contributes to the overall discussions on the nature of interdisciplinarity by describing primeval workshops on interdisciplinarity and by showing how the search for timeless truths and objectivity can be deviated by political and economic interests amidst disciplinary competition.
Readings:
Theodore M. Porter. ‘Life Insurance, Medical Testing, and the Management of Mortality.’ In Lorraine Daston (ed). Biographies of Scientific Objects. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000, pp. 226-246.
Alain Desrosières. La Politique des Grands Nombres: Histoire de la Raison Statistique. Paris: La Découverte, 1993, pp. 104-111, 182-217, 226-231, 271-276.
7 April 2016 (Jana Vargovčíková) Studying the State through the Scandal: On the Epistemic Value of Transgression
‘In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking. Now, heaven knows, anything goes.’ (Cole Porter).
Far from being anomalies or mere accidents, transgressions are conditioned and given meaning by norms. Subsequently, norms repeatedly reaffirm their legitimacy and meaning in contrast to transgressions. What is considered as transgression and when transgression gains the potential of being turned into a scandal varies in time and space, as the quote suggests. That is why, given the imbrication of norms and transgressions, social scientists and philosophers have turned to cases of transgression in order to understand order, social norms and institutions, as well as to comprehend the nature of the distinction between the two (e.g. Foucault, Becker, Hughes, Goffman). Leaving normative preconceptions aside, then, a sociologist or political scientist can learn from an anthropologist and treat transgressions in the political realm as indicators of the (symbolic, but not exclusively so) structure of the state. Political scandals as narratives of events labelled as transgressive represent precisely such means of enquiry into how a political body organizes the limits of its norms (De Blic & Lemieux) and into how citizens relate to the political order (Gupta).
Readings
Damien de Blic & Cyril Lemieux. ‘Le scandale comme épreuve.’ Politix 71 (3): 9–38, 2005.
Akhil Gupta. ‘Blurred Boundaries: The Discourse of Corruption, the Culture of Politics, and the Imagined State.’ American Ethnologist 22 (2): 375–402, 1995.
Chris Jenkins. ‘Transgression: The Concept.’ Architectural Design 83 (6): 20, 2013.
21 April 2016 (Lara Bonneau) The uses of analogy in human and social sciences
It is possible to conceive transdisciplinarity as sharing of objects or methods by several disciplines. Besides objects and methods, it can also be – and this might be its first form – the sharing of a common lexicon. The tendency of certain human sciences – philosophy in particular – to use concepts elaborated by other disciplines in other contexts was sharply criticized by Alan Sokal in 1994, in what remains known as the Sokal Affair. The physicist tried to discredit the way certain philosophers were using concepts that belonged to the natural sciences, showing their ignorance about the real meaning of these concepts in their original field and thereby reducing their work to vain language games. Indeed, the use of analogy and metaphor in the human sciences can be put into question. During this session, I will try to show that, if it is not without danger, the use of analogy and metaphor is inherent to the scientific activity, which can moreover be both legitimate and fruitful. I will start with a concrete example: the way the art historian Aby Warburg uses analogy and metaphors from the natural sciences. I will then rely on a more reflexive text about the legitimacy of this method entitled Théorie de l’acte analogique in Simondon’s L’individuation à la lumière des notions de forme et d’information.
Readings
Gilbert Simondon. L’individu et sa genèse physico-biologique. Paris: PUF, 1964, pp. 264-268.
Aby Warburg. Miroirs de faille, A Rome avec Giordano Bruno et Edouard Manet. Paris: Presses du réel/L’écarquillé, 2011, pp. 62, 64.
5 May 2016 (Monika Brenišínová) Architecture and Art as Historical Sources: On the Borders of Humanities and Social Sciences
In various theoretical discussions on architecture, we may notice that there is not a singular way of approaching it. From the classical perspective of the history of art classical art historical perspective, it is possible to identify at least three basic methods of inquiry: archaeological building survey („Bauforschung“, A. von Gerkan, in Czech “SHP”, D. Líbal); style-critical and style-historical analyses (H. Wölfflin, H. Focillon, M. Dvořák); semantic analysis (G. Passavant, E. Hubala). When we consider art in general, things however get even more complicated. If we take into account the fact that even among historians of art a consensus about the definition of art as such does not exist, what will happen when we will look at art from the perspective of another scientific discipline? When we conceive art as an historical source, traditional art historical categories such as the aesthetic point of view, the author’s fantasy, the styles or commonplaces (loci communes) quickly lose their significance. Moreover, historical work with visual sources is largely interpretative and requires a significantly critical approach. Thus we suddenly find ourselves on the borders of humanities and social sciences. And it is exactly such space, outside the frontiers of clearly defined disciplines, where the space and time change their shapes and where other disciplines – such as anthropology – can be brought into play.
Readings
Clifford Geertz. ‘Art as Cultural System.’ MLN 91(6): 1473–1499, 1976.
George Kubler. ‘History: Or Anthropology: Of Art?’ Critical Inquiry, 1(4): 757-767, 1975.
The aim of the course is to familiarize students with the main topics and problem areas in the history of Central Europe in the long nineteenth century. The course follows a topical arrangement focusing on central themes at the intersection of social history and historical sociology; it is neither chronological, nor comprehensive. Each section starts with the presentation of basic theoretical concepts, followed by the discussion of selected readings. The course focuses on problem areas in connection with the social and economic changes that took place in Central Europe during the long nineteenth century. The key concept of our discussion is ‘modernization theory’ and the different facets of modernization understood as a process of social and economic change in the period under scrutiny. Here, instead of interpreting ‘modernization’ as a normative developmental model, the course demonstrates how modernization could be analyzed as a heterogeneous and non-linear process, which always infers the possibility of fallbacks, as the history of Central Europe demonstrates it, and contains a mixture of ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ elements.
Assessment
Active class participation, one in-class presentation on a chosen topic (ca. 10-15 minutes), a position paper based on the presentation (ca. 1500 words) at the end of the term.
Convener: Filip Vostal (CEFRES & FLÚ AV ČR) Language: English
Seminar is open to students and scholars from CEFRES’s partner institutions. Each session will begin by an overview of one selected reading in French or English to be chosen from the list by a CEFRES fellow. The reader with texts will be available in electronic form.
Interdisciplinarity can be defined as a dialogue between fields of knowledge in such a way that these fields are partially reorganized and reframed. It is usually distinguished both from ‘pluridisciplinarity’, which would merely juxtapose the disciplinary approaches, leaving them intact, and from transdisciplinarity, which integrates several disciplines into one approach.
On the one hand, the proliferation of the term interdisciplinarity has undoubtedly signaled a reflexive attitude across traditional academic disciplines and a clear intention for closer interminglings, cooperations and connections – of methodologies, modes of inquiry, theory (re)constructions and even knowledge application. Researchers are advised to think, behave and work synergistically. Furthermore, over the last decades – particularly under the auspices of post-industrial ‘knowledge economy’ – interdisciplinarity has become a widespread scientific and public practice. Ever since the 1960s the OECD then the EU have deployed interdisciplinarity as an instrument pitched against the enclosed and self-referential ‘academism’ in public research and foregrounded socio-economic impacts of scientific research. This political discourse, stressing innovation, application and closer links between science and society – ‘socialization of science’ and ‘scientification of society’ – was dominant in the 1990s when public research became structured not around disciplines but around problems and ‘global challenges’ to be diagnosed and solved. As major EU policy initiatives such as Horizon 2020 maintain, research is to be conducted in the ‘context of its application’ (Mode 2).
On the other hand, skeptics point out that deliberate dissipation of disciplinary boundaries challenges the very notion of disciplines as the basic unit of academia – that is methodological, theoretical and discursive discipline (in a sense of disciplining) that is arguably the foundational principle of scientific enterprise and rationality. Moreover, there are arguments maintaining that interdisciplinary is by and large a performative juggernaut, which conceals more than it reveals. Isn’t the concept interdisciplinarity standing for a standard and often natural scientific collaboration across disciplinary boundaries? Haven’t disciplines been always, in one way or another, interdisciplinary? Isn’t interdisciplinarity a powerful instrument steering science policy and governance rather than set of practices integral to scientific conduct? And yet, if we are to address, analyze and explain late modern world, is it possible not to be interdisciplinary?
There is no doubt that interdisciplinarity transforms disciplines, but the nature of such transformation is yet to be explored. In this seminar we will discuss such burning questions and explore the promises and pitfalls of interdisciplinarity, as a practice, discourse and imperative in research conduct.
Academic work has long been divided according to disciplines, which can be considered as the major reference frame of the university. Despite this long-lasting management of scientific activities, many researchers consider such a frame a contrived constraint, especially since scientific objects themselves proceed from the defining of a specific problematic, to which a proper methodology is to be applied to solve it. The uneasiness surrounding the debate on disciplines is increased by two factors: their growing fragmentation into subdisciplines and the rise of the new paradigms of trans- and interdisciplinarity within all research fields.
The research seminar Between Disciplines and Areas aims at discussing this development through the presentation of the research with which scholars of IMS and the French Research Center in Humanities and Social Sciences (CEFRES) are engaged. Indeed, they are used to working within two frames: the area (or “territory”), which places the research object in a specific context, and the discipline, which constitutes the theoretical backbone of the inquiry. Traditionally area and discipline are divided along the line drawn between empirical and theoretical approaches. This border prompts two main questions: To what extent does a theoretical frame fit to objects in context? And on the other hand, can empirical outcomes provide a more comprehensive understanding?
These are some of the questions that will be addressed at our seminar. By presenting their research in situ, scholars are invited to reflect upon the connection between their discipline(s), object and research field. They should therefore elaborate on the methodological inputs and theoretical framework of their researches.
Since 2007, CEFRES has teamed up with the Institute of Czech History of the Faculty of Arts (Charles University in Prague) around a weekly seminar in history. Open to Prague’s French-speaking students and to Erasmus students from France, the seminar hosts French historians around a unifying theme chosen every semester.
The theme for Winter Semester 2015-2016 is: “Travel and Communication”.
