CfA: CEU Summer School on “The Biological and the Social between 1900 and Today”, 16-21 July, 2018 (CEU, Application deadline: February 14, 2018)
Submitted by Maria Kronfeldner (CEU).
This summer school will examine critically the ways in which the social sciences and biology have been historically bound up over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. From the beginning of that period, social and political theories exerted their influence on the knowledge produced by biological disciplines, while the social sciences built their understanding of human societies by drawing on what biology could tell them about human nature. The course will examine the entangled history of these disciplines and scrutinize how scientific boundaries are drawn and maintained, and how knowledge travels across them. We will evaluate what history can teach us about these exchanges and contemplate about possible joint work between social and biological scientists in the future.
Key topics of the course will include: early history of eugenics, different hereditary theories and their social implications, the nature/nurture divide, uses of history in genetics and vice versa, the relationship between social science and evolutionary theory.
Course Director(s):
Tatjana Buklijas
Liggins Institute, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Emese Lafferton
Department of History, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary
Course Faculty:
Clare Hanson
Department of English, University of Southampton, UK
Mark Hanson
Medicine, University of Southampton, UK
Christophe Heintz
Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary
Eva Jablonka
Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas, Tel Aviv University, Israel
Maria Kronfeldner
Department of Philosophy, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary
Veronika Lipphardt
University College Freiburg, Albert-Ludwigs-Universitaet Freiburg, Germany
Maurizio Meloni
Department of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield, UK
Judit Sandor
Legal Studies, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary
Mihai Surdu
University College Freiburg, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Germany
The course will combine: lectures (45-60 mins) by core faculty followed by discussion of raised issues with students (30 mins), seminars (90 mins.) which concentrate on discussing pre-circulated texts and brief student presentations on selected topics, early afternoon workshops for public presentation and discussion of student research (draft thesis chapters, research proposals, draft articles, conference presentations, blog posts, audiovisual material, exhibition plans, etc.), individual writing and research time for the completion of short assessments, and public lectures for a wider audience.
