DIAS Guest lecture by Rens Bod, Professor of Digital Humanities and History of Humanities, University of Amsterdam
Invited and presented by DIAS Chair of Humanities Anders Engberg-Pedersen
The Human Quest for Patterns and Principles: Toward a Global History of Humanities and Science
I will argue for a polycentric perspective on the history of knowledge. Such a perspective allows us to discover knowledge practices that cross disciplines, periods and regions, suggesting alternative chronologies for the history of humanities and science. We have found, for example, a process from descriptive to prescriptive in the practices of writing grammars, and of describing the shapes of planetary orbits.
These practices were descriptive for some time, at various knowledge centers, but became prescriptive in later periods, after which they turned descriptive again. I will argue that this kind of longue durée tendencies provides insight into the nature of human knowledge creation which seems to be based on an interaction between the search for empirical patterns and theoretical principles.
About:
Rens Bod is professor of Digital Humanities and History of Humanities, director of the Center for Digital Humanities and director of the Vossius Center for the History of Humanities and Sciences. He investigates the humanities from both computational and historical perspectives. He currently serves as president of the Society for the History of the Humanities, and is a member of Royal Dutch Society of Sciences and Humanities (“Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen”) and of the Society for the Dutch Letters (“Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde”). He is also the founder of WOinActie, an action group that aims at achieving appropriate funding for Dutch universities.
Bod is the author of the first historical overview of the humanities from Antiquity to the present: A New History of the Humanities (translated from the Dutch "De Vergeten Wetenschappen"). The book has appeared in 7 translations, and was voted as best science book of 2011 by Kennislink and as one of the 25 books on science you "must have read" by NRC Handelsblad. The book has been reviewed by over 45 journals and newspapers and is acclaimed as "an extraordinarily ambitious undertaking ... the first ever history of its kind" (Times Literary Supplement) and "Bod takes the humanities back to their rightful place in the family tree of science."
Recently, Rens Bod has also published a monograph on the general history of knowledge disciplines, entitled Een Wereld Vol Patronen: De Geschiedenis van Kennis ("A World of Patterns: The History of Knowledge"), which explores the search for patterns and underlying principles in 20 disciplines from 5 continents across the sciences, social sciences and the humanities. The book was published open access in 2022.
The lecture takes place in the DIAS Auditorium, Fioniavej 34. Everybody is welcome and no registration is needed.
Live stream it at youtube.com/@danish-ias
Invited and presented by DIAS Chair of Humanities Anders Engberg-Pedersen
The Human Quest for Patterns and Principles: Toward a Global History of Humanities and Science
I will argue for a polycentric perspective on the history of knowledge. Such a perspective allows us to discover knowledge practices that cross disciplines, periods and regions, suggesting alternative chronologies for the history of humanities and science. We have found, for example, a process from descriptive to prescriptive in the practices of writing grammars, and of describing the shapes of planetary orbits.
These practices were descriptive for some time, at various knowledge centers, but became prescriptive in later periods, after which they turned descriptive again. I will argue that this kind of longue durée tendencies provides insight into the nature of human knowledge creation which seems to be based on an interaction between the search for empirical patterns and theoretical principles.
About:
Rens Bod is professor of Digital Humanities and History of Humanities, director of the Center for Digital Humanities and director of the Vossius Center for the History of Humanities and Sciences. He investigates the humanities from both computational and historical perspectives. He currently serves as president of the Society for the History of the Humanities, and is a member of Royal Dutch Society of Sciences and Humanities (“Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen”) and of the Society for the Dutch Letters (“Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde”). He is also the founder of WOinActie, an action group that aims at achieving appropriate funding for Dutch universities.
Bod is the author of the first historical overview of the humanities from Antiquity to the present: A New History of the Humanities (translated from the Dutch "De Vergeten Wetenschappen"). The book has appeared in 7 translations, and was voted as best science book of 2011 by Kennislink and as one of the 25 books on science you "must have read" by NRC Handelsblad. The book has been reviewed by over 45 journals and newspapers and is acclaimed as "an extraordinarily ambitious undertaking ... the first ever history of its kind" (Times Literary Supplement) and "Bod takes the humanities back to their rightful place in the family tree of science."
Recently, Rens Bod has also published a monograph on the general history of knowledge disciplines, entitled Een Wereld Vol Patronen: De Geschiedenis van Kennis ("A World of Patterns: The History of Knowledge"), which explores the search for patterns and underlying principles in 20 disciplines from 5 continents across the sciences, social sciences and the humanities. The book was published open access in 2022.
The lecture takes place in the DIAS Auditorium, Fioniavej 34. Everybody is welcome and no registration is needed.
Live stream it at youtube.com/@danish-ias
- Organizer: DIAS
- Address: Fioniavej 34, 5230 Odense M
- Contact Email: vip@sdu.dk
- Add to your calendar: https://eom.sdu.dk:443/events/ical/146f854d-ea81-442f-a95f-f249d18004e9