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Lecture Notes Philosophy Science For European Studies
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Notes lectures and philosophy of science II (Philosophy of the Humanities Area Studies)
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Wetenschapsfilosofie 2 – Aantekeningen hoorcollegesLecture 1 Interdisciplinarity and The Narrative Turn
Specific for European studies 1) Europe as part of the wide world (post-colonial
perspective), but 2) rethink space and geography: interdisciplinarity.
Rumford: where is European Studies?
- Doesn’t ask what is European Studies, but where is European Studies meaning where
on the disciplinary map of the humanities and social sciences can European Sciences can
be fined.
- In between has to do with a rift between: EU Studies (studying European Union;
inward looking and hardly a global perspective), but also a lot of other research going on
in the humanities and social sciences what has to do with European Studies European
Studies didn’t got the recognition for all the good work it has done.
Example:
- Experts from different disciplinary backgrounds had different explanations for the
Balkan war in the 1990s: political reasons, economic reasons, cultural reasons, legal
reasons and historical reasons.
- There isn’t one answer to explain the Balkan war.
Rumford:
- There is a lot of going on for European Studies finding in different academic disciplines:
geography, sociology, planning, cultural studies, history, … how do these very
different disciplines talk to each other?
- European Studies has a common research agenda.
- And there is a common methodological notion binding al these questions together = the
‘constructiveness of Europe’.
- a multidisciplinary approach but which discipline come first (frames the agenda)?
Rumford: European Studies has a common object the transformations of Europe (not
Europe).
Constructiveness and transformations requires an interdisciplinary perspective (not a
multidisciplinary perspective)
- European Studies at the UvA 1988 – present: from a merely Western European focus to
encompassing the whole of Europe and its adjacent zones; from a national (languages
and countries) to a transnational perspective.
- Now a mix between a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary courses.
What is interdisciplinarity?
- Problem that there isn’t a theory or disciplinary of interdisciplinarity.
- Different opinions/definitions about interdisciplinarity.
- UNESCO 1972: interactions – communication – mutual integration – different fields
– common effort on a common problem.
- Consensus? Or no consensus? – about interdisciplinarity…
,Critique of interdisciplinarity
- True knowledge requires disciplinary work. (who do you think you are to talk about our
objects: response to Mieke Bal – Reading Rembrandt)
- Mastering more than one discipline is too difficult.
- Long on pretense, short on rigor!
Disciplines are continuously redefining themselves (changes all the time)
- In this redefining scholars are always using aspects from other disciplines to redefine
themselves.
- Why do these disciplines all the time?
- Internal: the object that you are studying challenges you to study other aspects of
the object.
- External: ex. feminism/anthropology has influence on the discipline and let to a
redefinition of the discipline.
Turns in the humanities (and social sciences)
- How to deal with these continuous redefinition of the disciplines?
- What do we mean with turns in connection to humanities and social sciences?
- Are these turn the same as paradigm shifts (Kuhn)?
- Paradigm shift: sort of revolution of science.
- Kubicki: ‘the object of natural science exists independently of the existence of
science itself in the humanities, the condition for the existence of their subject
is the existence of the people who create this subject.’
- Turns changes and transformation in the way we analyze/study the objects that we
self create.
- These turns are not paradigm shift, because there isn’t a fundamental outlook but an
exchange/interchange between the disciplines.
This week: The Narrative Turn = related to the linguistic turn.
- A widespread attention in different domains which studies the nature and effect of story
and storytelling (examples: psychology, law, medical and management theory).
Why start with narrative/narrative turn?
- A narrative is not just an object to be interpreted and analyzed, but also by itself a way
of interpreting and evaluating one of the main tools to look into the way sources are
representing reality, and creating meaning.
- Without a narrative the experience can’t be reproduced.
- Mieke Bal: explains how she got there (in an interdisciplinary field).
Short history of narratology (narrative analysis
- Ancient rhetorics: attention for tropes and argumentational structures.
- 19th century: historicization (how can one reconstruct the character of an ancient nation
by literary sources.
- Beginning 20th century: Russian Formalism Czech structuralism (study of language
became a field in itself and tried to understand the working of language).
- Formalism and structuralism shared insights: fabula (the underlying chronological
order) – sujet (subject: the events as they are presented in the text).
, Bal’s analysis of Rembrandt’s Susanna and the Elders (art history) as an example of
Interdisciplinarity.
Narrative turn.
- (Rumford: transformations and constructiveness of Europe the painting as example).
- Meaning is constructed, we make it while watching.
- The object (as well as the spectator is transformed.
(Traditional) art criticism: fabula and sujet
- Problem with the painting for feminist scholars how do such iconic paintings function
nowadays? What do we do with painting that are central in traditional art? What to do
with the subject of sexual answers?
- Mieke Bal tries to answer these question with narratology.
- Imposes two concepts (fabula and sujet) about how art history works.
- Art history is limited: only the spectator.
- Narratology: can add an additional question what story does the visual
representation reproduce?
- Tradition question has to do with voyeurism: is Susanna ‘appealing to or
enticing the spectator?’ isn’t she also to blame for the male attackers are
going to use against her.
- A complex text with question to do with gender, representation of female
moods and the hidden gendered attitude that art historians have been
studying.
- Bal: you can go beyond these questions by adding tools from narratology =
focalization.
Painting
- A traditional depiction of Susanna and the Elders.
- Mieke Bal: there are series of details that suggest different interpretation from the
traditional gendered one.
- Look at the man who is closest to Susanna (he is undressing her, but also staring at
the pearls in her hair and what is to do with his right hand (thinking)?)
- You have a story within a story: 1) Susanna and the Elders; 2) a peculiar narrative
from a rapist which is distracted by something? you never know because it is a
visual representation of the ancient biblical story.
- Mieke Bal: it is all about the sujet and not about the ancient biblical story the story
within the story becomes so important.
- Rembrandt complicates her gaze (Susannah), because the elder is looking at the
way the pearls are being depicted (the peculiar gaze of the man) the spectators
is also involved and are watching a scene of rape which is rather problematic.
- Point that Bal tries to make = the story in a story becomes a commentary of watching as
such and reminding us that we as spectators are involved with an act that is rather
problematic.
Conclusion:
- Interdisciplinarity: narratology is being used to discuss a painting why do you need
tools from a textual analysis Bal: helps to refine and complicates the visual model
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