BRB.
This week I am participating in a course on Science Theory of the Arts and Humanities at the University of Copenhagen. It runs Mon-Fri 9-16, so there won't be much time for posting - since I also have to read for it after class! Seems interesting, though - it is fun being with "pure" Humanists again, people who do not really care about computers, but study stuff like Byzantine Music on Mount Athos, French African Politics, the History of Paleontology, the Importance of the First Position in Latin Sentences and the Teaching of Danish Grammatics in Secondary Schools. Yes, I too thought that these subjects sounded very specific and somewhat small-scale - but after having read and heard about them for a day now, I find that we have more in common than I would have thought possible. Schooled as humanists we face the same problems of proving the scientific validity of our theses, institutionalised as ph.d.students we very much feel the same stress and the same pressure in the short period we have to produce "new scientific knowledge." And whether you interview monks in Greece or dwarfs in cyberspace you are confronted with the same problems of ethics and understanding of what the concept of "informed consent" actually entails.
Lesson of the day: Never underestimate the power of basic discussions.
# posted by Lisbeth at: 18:09