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Research master course: Science, scholarship and society (March – May 2014)

Science, scholarship and society

Dates: Friday 7 and 21 March, 4 and 18 April, 9 May
Time: 13u-15u
Venue: Utrecht (exact location to be confirmed)
Open to: ReMa students registered with the Huizinga Institute
Fee (non-members): €250
Credits: 3 ECTS
Coordinator: Dirk van Miert (UU) – contact: D.K.W.vanMiert[at]uu[dot]nl
Guestlecturers: Rens Bod, Charles van den Heuvel, and Wijnand Mijnhardt

Registration: maximum participants: 15 – register before: 10 February, 2014 – register here

It would appear that the humanities are in an existential crisis. Research budgets are limited, accountability and output are monitored more strictly than ever, and many researchers find it difficult to integrate societal relevance, interdisciplinary approaches and cutting-edge research. Many scholars argue that the modeling of the humanities on practices in the natural sciences has ignored the idiosyncrasies of research in the humanities. But the huge variety of domains within humanities and the lack of uniformity in standards and research traditions, hinders a reflection on the value of research in the humanities which is both fundamentally satisfactory and strategically effective. In this course we will study the history of the fragmentation within the knowledge domain of the humanities, and the perspectives for a re-integration. Students will reflect on their own research topics in the light of this history and learn to position themselves more consciously in a future program of research.

Preliminary schedule:

Session 1 (7 March 2014): The formation of the disciplines
Lecturer: Rens Bod

Session 2 (21 March 2014): Discourses of the Scientific Revolution: have historians taken over the history of science?
Lecturer: Dirk van Miert

Session 3 (4 April): The digital humanities: are scientists taking over the humanities?
Lecturer: Charles van den Heuvel

Session 4 (18 April): The humanities in postwar academic politics
Lecturer: Dirk van Miert

Session 5 (9 May): Humanities Research and Society
Lecturer: Dr Wijnand Mijnhardt

Literature & readings

will be announced in due time.

Credits & certificate

Certificates of participation and credits are available upon request after the event. Event coordinators will decide whether the participant has fulfilled all requirements for the ECTS. Please direct your request to Huizinga-fgw@uav.nl and include the postal address you want the certificate send to. Note: the certificate itself is not valid as ECTS, you need to validate it yourself at your local Graduate School.