Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T07:58:41.785Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Two Cultures into One?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 February 2018

Wim Blockmans*
Affiliation:
Emiel Poetoustraat 25, 9030 Ghent, Belgium. Email: wim.blockmans7@gmail.com

Abstract

Over the last few decades, two developments have brought fundamental changes to the study of the humanities. The digital revolution triggered the construction of huge databases, universally accessible and searchable on an unprecedented scale. As a consequence, new ways of thinking in wider contexts and organizing research on a larger scale came within reach of disciplines that had previously mostly been active on an individual level and focusing on particular phenomena. Moreover, applications of new scientific methods led to breakthroughs in fundamental humanities issues such as environmental and biological data that were essential for living conditions and for the formation of collective identities. The increased collaboration between disciplines led to major innovations.

Type
Conflicts and Dialogues between Science and Humanities
Copyright
© Academia Europaea 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References and Notes

1. Block, G. D. (2016) Priceless: The Value Proposition for the Humanities (Haarlem: Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen), pp. 1214.Google Scholar
2. Nussbaum, M. C. (2010) Not for Profit. Why Democracy Needs the Humanities (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press), pp. 97112.Google Scholar
3. Snow, C.P. (1959) The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution (London: Cambridge University Press) and his novel: C.P. Snow (1951) The Masters (London: Macmillan).Google Scholar
4. Koenig, T. (2016) The European Research Council (Cambridge: Polity).Google Scholar
5.See for example the Leiden-based Lorentz Center, inviting collaborative projects including humanities, social and natural sciences: www.lorentzcenter.nl.Google Scholar
6. Schmidt, S. W., Landé, C. and Guasti, L. (Eds) (1977) Friends, Followers and Factions (Berkeley: University of California Press).Google Scholar
7. Lijphart, A. (1977) Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration (New Haven: Yale University Press).Google Scholar
8. Brinton, C. (1965 [1938]) The Anatomy of Revolution (New York: Vintage Books); B. Moore (1966) Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Boston: Beacon Press); T. Skocpol (1979) States and Social Revolutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); T. Gurr (1970) Why Men Rebel (Princeton: Princeton University Press); C. Tilly (1993) European Revolutions, 1492-1992 (Oxford: Blackwell).Google Scholar
10.A model is Broodbank, C. (2013) The Making of the Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean from the Beginning to the Emergence of the Classical World (London: Thames & Hudson).Google Scholar
11. Barry, A. and Born, G. (Eds) (2013) Interdisciplinarity: Reconfigurations of the Social and Natural Sciences (London and New York: Routledge).Google Scholar
12. Rutgers, L. V. (2000) The Jews in Late Ancient Rome. Evidence of Cultural Interaction in the Roman Diaspora (Leiden: Brill).Google Scholar
13. Slavin, Ph. (2012) The great bovine pestilence and its economic and environmental consequences in England and Wales, 1318-1350. Economic History Review, 65, pp. 12391266.Google Scholar
14. Bramanti, B., Stenseth, N. C., Walløe, L. and Lei, Xu (2016) Plague: A disease which changed the path of human civilization. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, 918, pp. 126 ; other leading contributors are Yujun Cui and Stephanie Haensch. The programme is supported by the panel ‘The Human Past’, belonging to the Humanities and Social Sciences section of the ERC.Google Scholar
15. Campbell, B. M. S. (2016) The Great Transition. Climate, Disease and Society in the Late-Medieval World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar