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Pierre Bourdieu’s Science of Science: Sources, Arenas, Legacies

Center for Science, Technology, and Society Studies (Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences) and CEFRES
are pleased to invite you to the workshop “Pierre Bourdieu’s Science of Science: Sources, Arenas, Legacies.”

When: Thursday 15 December, 2022, 10 am – 6 pm
Where: CEFRES, Na Florenci 3, Prague 1 and online
Convenor & contact: Jan Marsalek marsalek(@)flu.cas.cz

The aim of the workshop is to reflect on Pierre Bourdieu’s conception and practice of sociology of science that he was developing since 1975 onwards. Reputed as neglected for a long time, the sociology of science and scientific knowledge has become, in the second half of the 20th Century, one of the most prominent sociological sub-disciplines, that does not hesitate to intervene into general sociology itself. Pierre Bourdieu, celebrated and influential in a wide range of sociological areas, was curiously standing aside this spectacular development of the sociology of science we commonly situate in the 1970s and 1980s. From his singular point of view, which we shall analyse, he made several intriguing criticisms of the emerging trend in the sociology of scientific knowledge, on which we wish to reflect.

The workshop picks up the threads of the Sociology and Philosophy of Physics seminars organized in 2022 by the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Faculty of Arts of the Charles University, Prague.

Program

10:00 – 12:00 GUEST LECTURE

Pascal Ragouet, University of Bordeaux – Centre Émile Durkheim
“Science as a Field. Bourdieu’s Contribution to the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge”

– See below for the abstract –

14:00 – 18:00 ROUNDTABLE

Confirmed speakers

  • Jan Maršálek, Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences
    Pascal Ragouet, University of Bordeaux – Centre Émile Durkheim (UMR 5116)
  • Manolis Simos, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
  • Julien Wacquez, CEFRES
  • Lukáš Hadwiger Zámečník, Faculty of Arts, Palacký University Olomouc
Abstract of the guest lecture

Science as a field. Bourdieu’s contribution to the sociology of scientific knowledge
Pascal Ragouet
Full Professor of sociology – University of Bordeaux – Centre Émile Durkheim (UMR 5116)

In the course of its history, the sociology of science has been traversed by several major debates. The first is the one that T. Shinn and I analysed in the book titled Controversies on Science by proposing to consider Robert K. Merton’s sociology as a form of differentiationism opposed to the anti-differentiationist tendencies of post-Kuhnian programmes of research on science such as the Strong Programme (D. Bloor, B. Barnes), the empirical programme of relativism (H. Collins, T. Pinch), laboratory studies (B. Latour and S. Woolgar, K. Knorr Cetina, M. Lynch) or the network actor theory (M. Callon, J. Law, B. Latour).

The second concerns the question of whether scientific knowledge can be sociologically analysed. With R. Merton, the sociology of science kept its distance from a sociology of scientific knowledge. The break comes with the Strong Programme and the Empirical Programme of relativism. The pendulum swings back the other way with the radical constructivism of network actor theories. Today, sociologists of science and technical innovation seem to be less concerned with scientific knowledge than with the need to think about science in society, when it is called upon by industrialists and politicians, when it feeds expertise, when it is questioned in the context of risk management and reflections on the relationship between science and democracy.

Bourdieu’s contribution to the sociology of science makes it possible to overcome these lines of conflict because it is based on a theoretical framework articulating a theory of social structuring, a theory of practice and a theory of social asymmetries. Based on two personal research projects on biology, the aim is to show the fruitfulness of this approach.

For further information, see:  http://odolnaspolecnost.cz/vedeckagramotnost/

Point of View: Autofiction As a Genre

Fourth session of the 2018 common epistemological seminar of CEFRES and IMS FSV UK led by

Ania Gnot (University of Opole / Institute of Czech Literature AV ČR / CEFRES)
Point of View: Autofiction As a Genre

Where: CEFRES library – Na Florenci 3, 110 00 Prague 1
When: Thursday 05.04.2018 from 3:30 pm to 5 pm
Language: English

Text:

  • Małgorzata Czermińska, “‘Point of View’ as an Anthropological and Narrative Category in Nonfiction Prose”, Teksty Drugie, 2012-2, p. 140-155.

Polish Queer Literature, Psychoanalysis and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

Polish Queer Literature, Psychoanalysis and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

4th session of the Seminar “Rethinking Psychoanalysis in Central Europe: Interdisciplinary and Transnational Perspectives”

When: Tuesday, June 7, 2022, 5:30–7:00 pm
Where: At CEFRES and online (to register please contact: claire(@)cefres.cz)
Language: English

Coordinator : Agnieszka Sobolewska (University of Warsaw/Sorbonne University/CEFRES)

Guest-speakers :

  • Błażej Warkocki (Adam Mickiewicz University)

Discussants : 

  • Agnieszka Sobolewska (University of Warsaw/Sorbonne University/CEFRES)
  • Małgorzata Smorąg-Goldberg (Sorbonne University)

Politics of Hunger. NaNo seminar #5

Politics of Hunger. Holodomor and Beyond. NaNo seminar #5

The fifth session of the seminar “Nature(s) & Norms” (NANO), carried out within the framework of the research program SAMSON (Sciences, Arts, Medicine and Social Norms), developed by Sorbonne University (Paris), the Faculty of Arts of the Charles University (Prague), Warsaw University and CEFRES welcomes three participants: Luba Jurgenson (CNRS / Sorbonne), Stanislav Tumis (Department of East European Studies, Faculty of Arts, Charles University), and Libuše Heczková as discussant.

Location: CEFRES Library and online (zoom)
To receive the link, please contact us at cefres[@]cefres.cz
Date: Friday, February 24th 2023, 4.30 pm
Language: English

Part 1
Luba Jurgenson, Eur’ORBEM (CNRS / Sorbonne)
A culture of norms: Biopower in the service of terror

Abstract: This presentation aims to interrogate the norms developed by the Soviet state, particularly during the Stalinist period, to regulate the relationship between the product of citizens’ labor and the food they are allowed to consume. It aims to seize in particular the situation of  populations considered as wrongdoers or criminals, namely peasants who oppose (or are supposed to oppose) collectivization and Gulag inmates. Hunger is a political weapon and a means of separating legitimate bodies (workers, defenders of the fatherland) from illegitimate bodies (those of “enemies”, “saboteurs”, “parasites” and other individuals who do not deserve to eat), the “healthy” body of society from its “sick” body;

Continue reading Politics of Hunger. NaNo seminar #5 →

Population Forecasting as a Scientific Instrument of Population Control

Planning from the future. Population Forecasting as a Scientific Instrument of Population Control

7th 2022 Session of CEFRES Seminar 

When: Wednesday 11 May 2022, 4:30–6:30 pm
Where: At CEFRES and online (to register, please contact claire(@)cefres.cz)
Language: English

Host: Nikola Ludlová (CEFRES)

Abstract

Predictions of the size and other demographic characteristics of human populations at specified future dates have played an important role in the shaping of population policies. The interest in envisioning future development as part of state governance dates back to antiquity, but the modern population forecasting as a scientific enterprise emerged along with the constitution of statistics and demography as scientific disciplines during the 19th century. Continue reading Population Forecasting as a Scientific Instrument of Population Control →

Populism in Central and Eastern Europe in the 20th Century

When and where: 11 – 12 May 2017, EHESS – Room M. et D. Lombard, 96 boulevard Raspail, 75006 Paris
Languages: English & French
Organizer:  Roman Krakovsky, LabEx Tepsis, EHESS, IHTP, CNRS, in partnership with CEFRES

Since the 1990s, several political movements qualified as “populist” have emerged in Central and Eastern Europe, drawing the attention of political scientists. If we want to understand why these movements exercise such attraction and why they are so relentless in this space, it is necessary to cross the study of current politics with the analysis of long term developments. Indeed, since the 19th century, Central and Eastern Europe has known several movements and political parties that have called themselves or have been labelled as “populist”. In this sense, the long-term approach allows considering the similarities and the differences, according to different contexts and periods, and identifying the reasons and the mechanisms of action of these movements. At last, this historical approach helps to consider the specificity – if there is any specificity – of these movements in Central and Eastern Europe and to evaluate their impact on political cultures of the region.

See the program of the workshop here.