We hereby forward an invitation from our friends at Utrecht University:

All are invited to join the second (virtual) meeting of the History of Knowledge Seminar Series @Utrecht University with a lecture by prof. Peter Burke (Cambridge) on Thursday 24 September 2020.

Bringing together leading scholars of both older and younger generations with different backgrounds and approaches, this bimonthly seminar series explores the past, present and future of the promising new scholarly field of the history of knowledge. More than just an overview of state-of-the-art research, it offers an opportunity to join the process of historiography in the making. 

The series is organized by Lukas Verburgt and Elske de Waal, with the support of the Descartes Centre, Utrecht University. See http://www.historyofknowledge.nl/ for more information and the full 2020-2021 program.  

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Speaker: prof. Peter Burke (Cambridge)

Title: ‘Local Knowledge(s)’  

Date: 24 September 2020 

Time: 15:30-17:00 (GMT +1)  

Location: online (Teams)  

Abstract: “Taking an overview of Europe over the last 500 years, and focusing on encounters between cultures, I should like to distinguish two recurrent attitudes on the part of scholars and scientists to local knowledges, the knowledges current in other cultures or among artisans or peasants in their own culture. The negative attitude, which has been the dominant one for a long time, has been to dismiss these claims to knowledge as false. The positive attitude has been a minority one, but it is already visible in the Renaissance, became more important in the Enlightenment, declined in importance in the 19th century but revived in the 20th, when it even became institutionalized in the discipline of anthropology.” 

Program:    

15:30-15:40    Introduction by Lukas Verburgt (Utrecht University)  

15:40-16:15     Lecture by Peter Burke (Cambridge)

16:15-17:00    Q&A  

Please register by sending a message (with your name + email address) to mail to: historyofknowledge.utrecht@gmail.com. You will receive a Microsoft Teams-invitation to the meeting.