[Bilimsel Haber] Politics, Identity and Objectivity in the Humanities and Social Sciences April 6-8, 2006 Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA

[Sule Tarakcioglu]

*Upcoming Interdisciplinary Colloquium:

National Scholarship and Transnational Experience: Politics, Identity
and Objectivity in the Humanities and Social Sciences
(April 6-8, 2006, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA)

*This upcoming colloquium will bring together scholars and graduate
students from both sides of the Atlantic to discuss the relationship
between nationalism and transnationalism in the development of the
humanities and social sciences in Europe. The presenters will place new
transnational approaches in historical perspective and will consider how
transnational experience, ideas, and contacts have influenced the
production of 'national' knowledge. The participants will cover a wide
range of fields, including anthropology, archaeology, ethnology,
folklore, history, literature, philology, and philosophy. The public is
invited and welcome to attend!

In the last two centuries, the nation has been a guiding concept in the
practice of the humanities and social sciences. Nations have constituted
not only institutionalized categories and topics of study, but also the
dominant sites of specialization within many of the disciplines. At the
same time, however the same scholars working in national or even
nationalist contexts have invariably engaged colleagues, ideas, and
issues beyond the frontiers of the nation-state. Whether grappling with
far-reaching world events or confronting cleavages in their own
societies, these scholars have found their national frameworks
consistently under threat by transnational impulses. The result has been
a complex and problematic relationship that remains salient today, even
as some scholars recognize that nationally-based research does not fit
the contemporary reality of intellectual, human, and capital flow among
countries.

In response, a number of humanities and social science scholars have
begun adopting various global or comparative ways of thinking about
their respective disciplines. While there are some clear differences
among these approaches, they all share a more transnational orientation
that is critical of the biases and limits of national categories and
that makes the national perspective itself an object of study. Both the
shape and scope of these trends may be relatively new, but the
relationship between "national" scholarship and its transnational
context has long been a crucial factor in the development of the
disciplines.

While the national influence upon these disciplines has received
in-depth attention from scholars in a number of fields, the
transnational component remains underexplored, even as it informs much
recent scholarship on the history of the humanities and social sciences.
This interdisciplinary colloquium, sponsored by the Alexander von
Humboldt Foundation, the Center for European Studies at UNC Chapel Hill,
and the Kenan Fund of the Department of History at UNC Chapel Hill,
considers the relationship between national scholarship and
transnational experience.

We are pleased to have Martin Jay (Professor, Department of History,
University of California, Berkeley) delivering the Opening Address: “Can
There be National Philosophies in a Transnational World?” Other
participants include Karen Hagemann, Richard Handler, J. Laurence Hare,
Jr., Jonathan Hess, Young-Sun Hong, Johanna Jacobsen, Konrad Jarausch,
Philip Kohl, Kader Konuk, Lloyd Kramer, Suzanne Marchand, Patricia
Mázon, Michael Meng, David Pan, Damani Partridge, H. Glenn Penny,
Jennifer Schacker, Justin Stagl, Philipp Stelzel, Katie Trumpener, and
Till van Rahden

WHAT: Interdisciplinary Colloquium, “National Scholarship and
Transnational Experience: Politics, Identity and Objectivity in the
Humanities and Social Sciences”
WHERE: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
WHEN: April 6th-8th, 2006
MORE INFORMATION:
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~johannaj/nationalscholarship
CONTACT: hare at email.unc.edu or johannaj at sas.upenn.edu

J. Laurence Hare, Jr. and Johanna Micaela Jacobsen
Department of History
Hamilton Hall, CB #3195,
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3195
USA

Phone: (919) 962-2115
Fax: (919) 962-1403
Email: hare at email.unc.edu <mailto:hare at email.unc.edu>

Visit the website at
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~johannaj/nationalscholarship
<http://www.sas.upenn.edu/%7Ejohannaj/nationalscholarship>