GRAND NARRATIVES/MODEST PROPOSALS
In 1979 Jean-Francois Lyotard famously announced the end of the Grand Narrative ushering in a new epistemological frame based on fragmentation and difference. The initial impetus of this movement was characterized by a turn to high theory but this eventually shifted toward an interest in returning to the "real", to the evidentiary, and to matters of fact. More recently, and despite pretensions to divine a more immediate access to the subjects under investigation, this impulse has been characterized in the human sciences by a rhetoric of modesty quite removed from either the grand narratives or high theory of the prior movements. And yet such modest proposals are now igniting a return to grand narrative be it in evolutionary theory, Big or Deep History, or the vast expanse of the digital humanities. The counter or companion to this unlikely twinning is a resurgence of apologetic or unapologetic rhetorics of big theory or narrative/interpretation as either counterpoint or support. In this semester, we will explore the relation of grand narratives, modest proposals, and meta-narratives over diverse periods and places bringing these to bear on our current moment.
Lectures
All lectures begin at 6 p.m. unless otherwise noted, and are held in the Daniel Family Commons, which is located in the Usdan University Center.
Neither Grand nor Modest: Critique as a form of historical analysis
02/05/2018
JOAN W. SCOTT • Institute for Advanced Studies
On Capitalization
02/12/2018
TIMOTHY MITCHELL • Columbia University
Chariotless: The Poet in the Anthropocene
02/19/2018
GABRIELLE PONCE-HEGENAUER • Wesleyan
The Historian's Task in the Anthropocene: Theory and Practice
02/26/2018
JULIA ADENEY THOMAS • University of Notre Dame
Robert Hooke's Prosthetic Gods GO
03/05/2018
LYNN FESTA • Rutgers University
"Blown from Cannon": A History of Violence, 1857 - 1764 GO
04/02/2018
WILLIAM PINCH • Wesleyan
Catastrophes and the Centralization of Urban Planning in Modern China
04/09/2018
YING JIA TAN• Wesleyan
“Diderot’s Hairshirt: The Story of the Great Encyclopédie”
04/16/2018
ANDREW CURRAN • Wesleyan
Twitter Stevens, Tumblr Stevens
04/23/2018
STEPHANIE BURT • Harvard University
Haunting History: Grand Digital Schemes in a Modest Analog Box GO
04/30/2018
ETHAN KLEINBERG • Wesleyan