Loomio
Fri 5 Oct 2018 6:26PM

Readings for Oct 15th meeting attached here (4-5:30pm, 470 Stephens)

CN Cristina Nigro Public Seen by 185

Bourdieu’s Science of Science and Reflexivity will be welcomed as a companion volume to Bourdieu's now seminal An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. In this posthumous work, Bourdieu declares that science is in danger of becoming a handmaiden to biotechnology, medicine, genetic engineering, and military research—that it risks falling under the control of industrial corporations that seek to exploit it for monopolies and profit. Science thus endangered can become detrimental to mankind. The line between pure and applied science, therefore, must be subjected to intense theoretical scrutiny. Bourdieu's goals in Science of Science and Reflexivity are to identify the social conditions in which science develops in order to reclaim its objectivity and to rescue it from relativism and the forces that might exploit it. In the grand tradition of scientific reflections on science, Bourdieu provides a sociological analysis of the discipline as something capable of producing transhistorical truths; he presents an incisive critique of the main currents in the study of science throughout the past half century; and he offers a spirited defense of science against encroaching political and economic forces.

Latour’s "Why has critique run out of steam?" - Is there still a role for discourse research today, some 30 years after Michel Foucault’s death? A decade ago, French actor-network theorist Bruno Latour famously declared the end of critique as ethos and practice in the social sciences. What is more, arguments made about the contingency of historical phenomena even arm “enemy” forces. Empirical work therefore should be replaced by a politics of “matters of concern,” says Latour.

CN

Cristina Nigro Mon 8 Oct 2018 5:20PM

This Hess piece might be a nice “further reading” for this session. Please find the pdf attached. It is the Intro to a special issue on Bourdieu and STS.