******************************************************
* http://www.anthropologymatters.com *
* A postgraduate project comprising online journal, *
* online discussions, teaching and research resources *
* and international contacts directory. *
 ******************************************************

Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 16:12:48 -0500
From: "Robert J. Richards" <[log in to unmask]>

********************************************************

   The University of Chicago and the Max Planck Institute for the History of
Science (Berlin) are sponsoring two conferences in the history of the human
sciences. A conference on knowing in the human sciences will occur in
Berlin at the end of August; another on responsibility in the human sciences
will take place in Chicago at the end of October. We wish to solicit
participation of a few undergraduates who might be seriously contemplating
graduate work in the history of the human sciences. Travel and lodging for
such students would be provided. A statement of interest by the
undergraduate and a letter of recommendation from his or her adviser should
be sent to Lorraine Daston ([log in to unmask]) or Robert Richards
([log in to unmask]) by May 10. The prospectus for the conferences
here follows.

 

 On Knowing in the Human Sciences

 

A workshop to be held in Berlin, 24-25 August 2006, co-organized by the Max
Planck Institute for the History of Science and the University of Chicago

 

 

What kind of knowledge do the human sciences produce? Against the background
of the polarization between the natural and human sciences*, this is less a
question than a challenge. Throughout Europe and North America, in diverse
scholarly traditions, the human sciences and their practitioners are under
increasing pressure to justify themselves as essential components of
university curricula, recipients of public and private support, and, above
all, worthy vocations for the best and brightest young people. Can the human
sciences grow, discover, invent, probe, prove, explain, predict – in short,
create knowledge as it has come to be defined on the basis of successes in
the sciences of life, matter, and energy? The human sciences are
repositories of learning; are they also engines of research? This workshop
aims to bring together a small group of scholars and students to explore the
knowledge-making practices of the human sciences.

 

In contrast to the rich recent literature on the history of scientific
practices, there has been almost no sustained historical inquiry into the
practices of the human sciences. Yet it is out of these practices that
disciplines crystallize. Taught since the early nineteenth century in
university seminars, the skills by which historians learn to ferret out
archival secrets, philologists to construct text stemmata, economists to
model mathematically, art historians to look at a painting, anthropologists
to go into the field, literary scholars to read a text – all these skills
create a discipline, as both a well-bounded domain of inquiry and a
distinctive habitus. In contrast to explicit doctrines of methodology,
practices are mostly implicit, so deeply internalized as to be invisible –
except when they are bungled or violated. They are the handiwork of the
human sciences, which admits of degrees of proficiency: apprentice,
journeyman, master. Methods dictate the standards of evidence of a
discipline; practices, the standards of self-evidence.

 

Participants in the workshop would be asked to explore one such practice
taken from the history of the human sciences since the Renaissance on hand
from a specific, focused case. Examples might include: “Leopold Ranke Visits
the Archive”; “William Stanley Jevons Models the Business Cycle”; “Sigmund
Freud Interprets a Dream”; “Claude Lévi-Strauss Takes Field Notes”; “Karl
Lachmann Constructs a Stemma”; “The Brothers Grimm Trace an Etymology”;
“I.A. Richards Reads a Poem”; “A.J. Ayer Dissects an Argument”; “Erwin
Panofsky Looks at a Picture”. The emphasis on verbs is deliberate: this how
research is done in the human sciences, knowledge in the making.

 

In order to leave ample time for discussion, only eight presentations are
planned. Instead of pre-circulating papers, the texts upon which the papers
are based would be distributed beforehand as preparation for discussion.
This is an exploratory workshop; no publication is planned. The objective is
to open up a new area of research that seeks better to understand the nature
of knowledge in the human sciences.

 

Because the history of practices in the human sciences has barely begun, it
is an especially inviting topic for talented undergraduate students with an
interest and at least an introduction to some aspect of the history of the
human sciences. Five fellowships would be advertised internationally to
select and fund student auditors at the workshop.

 

 

 

On Responsibility in the Human Science

 

A workshop to be held in Chicago, 20-21 October 2006, co-organized by the
University of Chicago and the Max Planck Institute for the History of
Science

 

            The human sciences establish, from a variety of perspectives,
knowledge about human beings, their activities, and communities. These
sciences range from history, anthropology, sociology, and economics to
psychology, evolutionary biology, and neuro-physiology. And close by these
enterprises stand literature and the other arts. The acquisition and
portrayal of knowledge do not exist in a vacuum, but occur within a context
of norms, injunctions of the discipline and those principles governing human
behavior.

            

            This workshop, similar to the first in Berlin, will emphasize
responsibility in the human sciences. Scientists exercise (or should
exercise) various modes of responsibility: representations well grounded in
the evidence; appropriate attributions; restraint on generalization; fair
treatment of other races, nationalities, groups; illustrations that are not
molded to the ends of argument; consideration of the psychological state of
subjects. For instance, a scientist might offer an illustration as evidence
for a conclusion, when it more properly ought to be regarded as a
pedagogical aid to make clear the theory at issue. Another kind of question
might be posed: Should contemporary human scientists use data derived from
Nazi experiments? On the other side of the text, historians bear
responsibility to their readers and to the subject of their concern. Among
the kinds of questions pursued will be: When Gibbon tells a scurrilous story
of Mohamed’s burial, has he abrogated historical responsibility, committed
an act of bad taste, or legitimately deployed an ironic twist? Should
historians morally judged their subjects or remain true to a non-normative
account? When an historian claims Darwin to be a racist, has he or she made
an appropriate judgment? Should Foucault write history to liberate the
reader from hidden epistemological and social constraints? How do normative
considerations enter into the very writing of history? Texts from a variety
of scientists and historians will serve as the common reading for the
discussions.

 

In order to leave ample time for discussion, only eight presentations are
planned. Instead of pre-circulating papers, the texts upon which the papers
are based would be distributed beforehand as preparation for discussion.
This is an exploratory workshop; no publication is planned. The objective is
to open up a new area of research that seeks better to understand the nature
of knowledge in the human sciences.

 

Because the inquiry into the responsibilities of the human sciences, like
that into the practices in the human sciences, has barely begun, it is an
especially inviting topic for talented undergraduate students with an
interest and at least an introduction to some aspect of the history of the
human sciences. Five fellowships would be advertised internationally to
select and fund student auditors at the workshop in Chicago.

 

 

Robert J. Richards

Fishbein Center for History <http://socialsciences.uchicago.edu/fishbein/>
of Science

The University of Chicago

1126 E. 59th St.

Chicago, IL 60637

Phone 773-702-8348

Links: Home page <http://home.uchicago.edu/~rjr6>

Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science <http://chss.uchicago.edu>

 

 


  _____

* The human sciences are here broadly construed to include the humanities,
the Geisteswissenschaften, as well as psychology, anthropology, economics,
and sociology.

*************************************************************
* Anthropology-Matters Mailing List *
* To join this list or to look at the archived previous *
* messages visit: *
* http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/Anthropology-Matters.HTML *
* If you have ALREADY subscribed: to send a message to all *
* those currently subscribed to the list,just send mail to: *
* [log in to unmask] *
* *
* Enjoyed the mailing list? Why not join the new *
* CONTACTS SECTION @ www.anthropologymatters.com *
* an international directory of anthropology researchers *
***************************************************************