Human and Social Sciences as History

This cross-departmental, intense reading seminar examines new directions in global history of social knowledge and science from 1800 to 1950. We will study science in context with a special focus on producers, objects and circuits of knowledge, and a relationship between knowledge, power and politics. We will critically investigate theoretical and practical implications of some major works in political economy, anthropology, statistics, sociology, psychology and psychiatry, including often overlooked scholars of color and female intellectuals. In particular, the seminar looks at the ways in which scholarly reflection shaped modern practices of classification, measurement, data collection, and immaterial objects of scholarly inquiry such as the self and the unconscious. Among others, we will discuss the cultural impact of the Enlightenment, imperial conquest, colonialism, nation-state building, mass politics, war violence, and communist revolutions in the Soviet Union and China. In conjuction, we will study  shifting understandings of community, wealth and social inequalities, citizenship, race, sexuality, cultural norms of behavior, and the very role of science in a society and across continents (metropolitan Europe and colonial territories, North and South America, Eurasia, and the Islamic world). The seminar welcomes students from all social sciences and humanities departments.