ANNOUNCEMENT:
International Summerschool 2007, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
'Dilemmas of Modernity. Science, scholars and society, 1880-1945'.
9-20 July 2007
Utrecht University
Organisation: Descartes Centre for the History and Philosophy of the
Sciences and Humanities, in cooperation with Utrecht University Museum
Course code: L19
Introduction
The 19th-century is often depicted as the triumph of modernity. In science,
social science and even and in the humanities positivism tried to combine
science, technology, sociology, liberalism, arts, humanities, and even
theology in one catch-all concept of human improvement. Science and
scholarship became the main carriers of this triumphalist idea of modernity.
But that is not the whole picture. This uncritical admiration of modernity
has bred its own opposition. Many Romanticists resented modernity. Notions
of The world we have lost and of Disenchantment of the world, Max Weber's
famous phrase, sprang up. Modernity seems from its inception to have been on
endless trial. Especially in the 1890s doubts and debates proliferated over
a broad array of disciplines. Combined with the shock of World War I and its
cultural and political aftermath in the interwar years this cultural and
political turn is rightly seen as a deep crisis of the European mind. It
brought to the surface the dilemmas of modernity, which still are with us.
In this sense the theme of this summer course is highly relevant to our
actual problems.
See for the preliminary program and details on application on:
http://www.utrechtsummerschool.nl/index.php?page=courses&code=L19
Sincerely,
Barbara Allart
Curator Natural Sciences Collection, Utrecht University Museum
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