News and Events: MoL and PhD defenses

Please note that this newsitem has been archived, and may contain outdated information or links.

6 July 2022, PhD Defence, Emma Mojet

Cover.png
Candidate: Emma Mojet
Title: Observing Disciplines: Data Practices In and Between Disciplines in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries
Date: Wednesday 6 July 2022
Time: 11:00
Location: Aula, Oude Lutherse Kerk, Singel 411, Amsterdam
Promotor: Rens Bod and Jeroen van Dongen
Copromotor: Bart Karstens

Abstract

This dissertation observes how disciplines shared data practices. Data practices enable scholars and scientists to transform observations into data that can be systematically collected and analysed. Practices of data collection and analysis from observations were shared between disciplines while at the same time disciplines also enforced certain boundaries. The dissertation presents two historical case studies: the first considers the application of statistical methods in the discipline of botany and the second discusses how the questionnaire method was adopted in the discipline of linguistics. Both cases are situated in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, mostly in France and Belgium. While both cases focus on different data practices and disciplines, together they illustrate the development of emerging social science disciplines, and also how international disciplinary congresses are important sites of disciplinary and interdisciplinary interaction. By tracing the sharing of data practices between disciplines this dissertation provides a practice-based perspective on discipline formation. It not only suggests interesting cases, but also provides a historiographical framework to research them. In a time when knowledge is increasingly considered a multi, inter, or even extra-disciplinary product, historical studies into the dynamics of disciplines can be both informative and reflexive.

For more information, see https://www.uva.nl/en/content/events/phd-defence-ceremonies/2022/07/observing-disciplines-data-practices-in-and-between-disciplines-in-the-19th-and-early-20th-centuries.html?origin=mujgxvcvRJiqgwG16zZpjQ or contact Emma Mojet at .

Please note that this newsitem has been archived, and may contain outdated information or links.