Borders of Knowledge — The Third Flying University of Transnational Humanities

Venue: Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea
Date: July 15 – 18, 2012
Application Deadline: March 16, 2012
Extended Application Deadline: March 30, 2012

Eligibility: Graduate stu­dents and recent PhDs inter­ested in the transna­tional par­a­digm of human­is­tic inquiry and con­duct­ing research on top­ics related to the theme of the mak­ing and unmak­ing of bor­ders of knowledge

The Flying University of Transnational Humanities (FUTH) is an annual sum­mer school for grad­u­ate stu­dents and young schol­ars inter­ested in the transna­tional par­a­digm of human­is­tic inquiry. FUTH takes its name and imme­di­ate inspi­ra­tion from Polands Flying University, an under­ground insti­tu­tion that offered an alter­na­tive edu­ca­tion out­side the con­fines of state con­trol and gov­ern­ment cen­sor­ship. The pro­gram is par­tic­u­larly con­cerned with devel­op­ing crit­i­cal under­stand­ings that resist the ide­o­log­i­cal and con­cep­tual hege­mony of the nation-state and the epis­te­mo­log­i­cal and hermeneu­tic con­ven­tions that sup­port it. This does not mean that FUTH seeks to dis­pense with the national and con­struct a rei­fied transna­tional with which to replace it, or to fos­ter transna­tion­al­ism as an ide­o­log­i­cal alter­na­tive to nation­al­ism. Rather, FUTH aims to free our imag­i­na­tions from essen­tial­ist approaches to the nation or the state and to offer new ways of think­ing about the polit­i­cal, social and cul­tural order of the world, both past and present.

Started in 2010, the Flying University of Transnational Humanities is orga­nized annu­ally usu­ally in the sum­mer by the Research Institute of Comparative History and Culture (RICH), Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea. FUTH con­sists of a series of advanced lec­tures, stu­dent pre­sen­ta­tions and feed­back ses­sions where renowned schol­ars from RICHs part­ner and other insti­tu­tions are invited to share their knowl­edge, insights and per­spec­tives. Student par­tic­i­pants are required to study the rec­om­mended read­ings in advance. They are also expected to present their own schol­arly work related to the theme of each year. The offi­cial lan­guage of FUTH is English, although the pos­si­bil­ity of trans-lingual prac­tices is being con­sid­ered. Graduate stu­dents and recent PhDs inter­ested in the transna­tional turn in the human­i­ties and social sci­ences are wel­come to apply with a pre­sen­ta­tion proposal.

The third FUTH will take place at Hanyang University, July 15 – 18, 2012, under the title of Borders of Knowledge. As numer­ous empir­i­cal stud­ies in intel­lec­tual his­tory, soci­ol­ogy of knowl­edge, and history/sociology/anthropology of the social, human, and nat­ural sci­ences have con­vinc­ingly demon­strated for sev­eral decades, the pro­duc­tion, dis­sem­i­na­tion and use of knowl­edge, though seem­ingly uni­ver­sal, are always embed­ded in spe­cific social, cul­tural, and his­tor­i­cal con­texts. Often, the sub­ject, the object and the modus operandi of knowl­edge are defined, con­strued, and con­strained by (national) bor­ders. Knowledge and its asso­ci­ated prac­tices thus shaped may in turn rein­force, repro­duce or rede­fine those very bor­ders. How then, does knowl­edge travel across bor­ders? Rather than fol­low­ing the nave mod­ernist assump­tion that knowl­edge is spread because it is true and/or is chan­neled through uni­ver­sally trans­fer­able method­i­cal prac­tices, one should approach the trav­els of knowl­edge as them­selves explananda rather than merely explanans for other phe­nom­ena. For instance, one may ask, what are the ways in which locally-produced knowl­edge is trans­lated, adapted, appro­pri­ated, or con­tested in dif­fer­ent local con­texts? By the same token, one may also ask, how does knowl­edge, despite its local ori­gins, come to acquire a pro­claimed uni­ver­sal­ity or glob­al­ity? With such ques­tions as a basis, the third FUTH in 2012 aims to pro­vide grad­u­ate stu­dents and young schol­ars with a unique oppor­tu­nity to crit­i­cally exam­ine the mak­ing and unmak­ing of the bor­ders of knowl­edge includ­ing the social sci­ences, human­i­ties, nat­ural sci­ences, and other forms of knowl­edge. Read more