Programme

In the winter semester 2009/10, the Interdisciplinary Seminar was launched as a new event format on the initiative of BGHS doctoral researchers. It aims to further promote the exchange between history and sociology and to encourage reflection on interdisciplinary cooperation.

The aim of the Interdisciplinary Seminar is to encourage young academics and professors to engage in a joint theoretical debate on research approaches of the two disciplines of history and sociology. The seminar is organised and hosted by doctoral researchers of the BGHS and a university lecturer of one of the two faculties. Proposals for topics should be registered with the BGHS office.

Previous interdisciplinary seminars:

Winter term 2017/18: Capital

Organisers: Jan Gräber, Aanor Roland, Sabine Schäfer, Thomas Welskopp

The Interdisciplinary Seminar on Capital aimed to encourage the interdisciplinary discourse and reflection on different theoretical concepts of capital. We discussed articles by Pierre Bourdieu, Karl Polanyi, Rosa Luxemburg, Klaus Dörre, Thomas Piketty, Thomas Welskopp and others.

Winter term 2016/17: Comparisons

Organisers: Thomas Welskopp, Oliver Flügel-Martinsen, Kerstin Schulte, Simon Füchtenschnieder

The seminar dealt with the instrument of scientific comparison and how it is viewed, used or not used in different scientific disciplines. The idea for the seminar was also inspired by the Collaborative Research Centre at the University of Bielefeld, which is concerned with practices of comparison and comparison, and which has its main focus both in the study of history and in literary studies. In addition to relevant ideas and theories from sociology and history on the subject of comparison (such as those of Michel Foucault, Quentin Skinner or Philipp Thers), approaches from comparative literature (such as Rajagopalan Radhakrishnan's or Susan Stanford Friedman's) have also played an important role in the seminar.

 

Winter term 2013/14: Theories of Consumption

Organisers: Thomas Welskopp, Marius Meinhof

The seminar dealt with various empirical and theoretical contributions from history, sociology and ethnology on the research field of "consumption". Of particular importance was the role of consumption for globalisation, distinction, cultural differences, identity concepts and economic growth. The choice of topics resulted from the observation that, although consumer research has gained in importance since the 1980s, it is still not clear how much has changed. Nevertheless, it has proved difficult to focus the scattered empirical and theoretical contributions to this field of research to the present day. The same applies to the role of consumption within society as a whole, especially the relationship between consumption and production.

 

Winter term 2012/13: Working with/on Social Practices II

Organisers: Henrik Dosdall, Clemens Eisenmann, Thomas Welskopp

The seminar attempted to present the theoretical core of approaches that come under the label of "practical theory" and to demonstrate the fruitfulness of practical approaches. The seminar included examples from the field of sports practices, especially boxing, and the field of industrial practices. These examples were used to discuss the potential of praxeological approaches. In addition, practical theory was critically questioned as to its novelty value. The overall aim of the seminar was to deepen the understanding of practical theoretical approaches and to discuss them critically and reflectively with regard to their sociological/historical adequacy.

Under the label of practical theory, prominent sociological and historical theory offers are subsumed. However, some of the approaches that address the topic of social practice are highly diversified and by no means to be understood as a uniform sociological or historical approach: the spectrum of theories and approaches that are assigned to this label ranges from the sociology of technology to Bruno Latour's actor network theory. Starting from the concept of social practice, these approaches attempt to shift the description of social reality to a vanishing point that is fed by the observation and description of social practices. The seminar followed up on discussions from the summer semester 2012 "Working with/on Social Practices". (Programme)

Summer Term 2012: Working with/on Social Practices

Organisers: Gleb Albert, Rory Tews, Thomas Welskopp

The seminar attempted to take stock of the development of the theoretical debate on practical theoretical approaches by means of central texts. In the science of history, but also increasingly in sociology, these approaches are seen as promising ways out of the various methodological dilemmas: as a way of reconciling structure and action, as a gateway for the return of the human actor, as a perspective for the mediation of language and action, as a transport vehicle for the material in culture according to Bruno Latour.

 

Winter Term 2011/12: Control

Organizers: Anna Demidova, Thomas Welskopp

During the seminar, a number of texts (including Pierre Bourdieu, Michel de Certeau, Harvey Sacks and Michel Foucault) dealing with different aspects of control research were discussed. The participants used the texts to reflect on how to implement the proposed approaches in their own work.

The following topics were discussed: understanding of rules, social production of law, being deviant as being noticeable, everyday resistances, resources of the European domination, political rationalities and governmental technologies.

 

Summer Term 2011: Space and Time

Organisers: Dominik Mahr, Mashid Mayar, Thomas Welskopp

The aim of the seminar was to introduce the participants to the tempo-spatial theory discussion in historical science and sociology. The topological turn of the late 1980s was chosen as the starting point to examine the topic in its disciplinary manifestations, questions and possibilities of analysis.

Using representative texts, it was possible to reflect on different historical and contemporary ways of accessing the pair of concepts "space and time". It proved to be a heuristically useful instrument for analysing phenomena of different magnitudes (e.g. globalisation) and from different fields of knowledge (e.g. science research).

 

Winter Term 2010/11: Culture and Society

Organisers: Ruben Hackler, Manuela Pfinder, Thomas Welskopp

In the course of the seminar, the pair of concepts culture and society was subjected to a critical examination from a social and historical perspective. Culture was generally understood as a dynamic ensemble of practices with varying patterns of meaning, whereas society was understood as a consolidated entity with an inherent tendency towards unification. The autonomy or interdependence of the pair of concepts was methodically and theoretically reflected from a sociological as well as a historical perspective.

 

Summer Term 2010: Structure and Reproduction

Organisers: Thomas Welskopp, Frank Wolff

During the seminar, the omnipresent concepts of structure and reproduction were subjected to closer scrutiny. The term structures was understood to mean changeable social contexts, but the relation to the reproducing actor or operator is interpreted in a theory-specific way. How is it to be understood conceptually that there are regularities behind observable regularities of action? This interrelationship was explored in the interdisciplinary seminar on the basis of theory development from classics of sociology to current approaches.

 

Winter Term 2009/10: Change and Continuity

Organizers: Jörg Bergmann, Hye-Young Haubner, Ulrike Schulz, Thomas Welskopp

The seminar took as its starting point the research approach of social mechanisms, which is currently highly regarded in sociology, in order to initiate a dialogue on synergy effects, but also on demarcation lines between the science of history and, in particular, sociology. The inflationary use of the concept of mechanism, which is not sufficiently explicit in either discipline, suggests an initially open approach: social mechanisms are initially understood in general terms as contingent, context-specific and generalisable causal relationships which are used to explain social change. The focus was not only on the social phenomenon ever to be explained, but above all on its process of emergence. This explicitly took into account the historical dimension: the contingency of change processes as well as the great variance of influencing factors, such as memory and experience, the establishment of social practices and routines or path dependencies.