FUTH 2012 : Borders of Knowledge
Date: July 15 ~ June 19, 2012
Venue: Paiknam Library and Academic Information Center, 6th Floor, Hanyang University
The third FUTH will take place at RICH, Hanyang University, July 15-19, 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 naive 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 themthemselves 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.