Research seminar that seeks to address and question the apparent divorce between Economic History and Social History through the discussion of a few key-texts.

Mind the gap: dialogues between Social and Economic History

Research Seminar

Over the past few decades, Economic History and Social History have followed increasingly divergent trajectories, pursuing research agendas that are not only distinct, but often incommunicable. This gap is particularly visible with regard to the theoretical and methodological frameworks prevalent in each field, but also in their objects of study. Since there is no consensus on where to draw the line that separates what belongs to the economy from what belongs to society, this incommunicability has limited the possibility of exploring topics and problems located on both sides of that frontier. In addition, this gap contributes to the compartmentalisation of historiographical debate, fragmenting it into increasingly closed areas of specialisation. As a result, historians often find themselves forced to choose between a (predominantly) qualitative approach to Social History and a (predominantly) quantitative approach to Economic History.

This on-line research seminar seeks to address and question the aforementioned divorce, by enabling the discussion of a few key-texts that deal with theoretical and methodological problems across the fields of Social History, Economic History, Sociology of Science, Historical Sociology, Political Economy and Anthropology..

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Programme:

07 October  |  William H. Sewell Jr., “Refiguring the Social in Social Science” (Logics of History)
Presented by Ricardo Noronha (IHC — NOVA FCSH)

21 October  |  Patrick Joyce, “What is the Social in Social History?”
Presented by Elisa Lopes da Silva (CRIA — NOVA FCSH)

04 November  |  Bruno Latour, “Why is it so difficult to trace the social” and “How to keep the social flat” (Reassembling the Social)
Presented by Francisco Calafate Faria (independent researcher)

18 November  |  Ian Hacking, “Biopower and the avalanche of printed numbers”
Presented by Gonçalo Morais (ISEL)

02 December  |  Timothy Mitchell, “The work of economics: how a discipline makes its world”
Presented by Henrique Oliveira (IHC — NOVA FCSH)

16 December  |  Phillipe Mirowski and Edward Nik-Khah, “It’s not rational” (The Knowledge We have Lost in Information: A History of Information and Knowledge in Economics)
Presented by Tiago Mata (University College London)

Organisation:

Gonçalo Morais (ISEL), Henrique Oliveira (IHC — NOVA FCSH), and Ricardo Noronha (IHC — NOVA FCSH)