On June 28, Herman Paul held his inaugural address as Professor of the History of the Humanities at Leiden University. In the address, titled “Kritisch denken: over het ethos van de geesteswetenschappen”, the case of “critical thinking” was used to illustrate what a longue durée, comparative history of the humanities might look like – and what we can learn from such historical projects. The address, in Dutch, can be read below.
Project members Edurne De Wilde, Anne Por and Hidde Slotboom recently wrote an article for the magazine Wonderkamer. In the article, titled ‘Wanneer wetenschappers elkaar wantrouwen’, the authors investigate how and why scholars distrust each other – a tendency in science that has a long history. They trace such distrust back to the seventeenth century and distinguish different appearances of this vice. Wonderkamer is a magazine about the history of… Read More »Article: ‘Wanneer wetenschappers elkaar wantrouwen’
Project member Anne Por wrote an article for the December issue of the Nieuw Archief voor Wiskunde, a journal published by the Koninklijk Wiskundig Genootschap. In the article, titled ‘Een wondermiddel tegen huichelarij, dweepzucht, en ongebreidelde fantasie: Wiskunde als remedie tegen wetenschappelijke ondeugden’, Anne compared the ideas of professor of philosophy Karl Hermann Scheidler (1795-1866) to those of Pieter van Geer, professor of mathematics and physics in Leiden (1841-1919). Both scholars found that mathematics could help… Read More »Publication: ‘Wiskunde als remedie tegen wetenschappelijke ondeugden’
How are academics molded by the institutions in which they work? What do teaching and mentoring do with the kind of persons we are? How does competition for money or status affect our mental habits? What kind of conduct do 21st-century universities encourage (e.g., by rewarding it) or discourage? In short, what are typically 21st-century academic virtues and vices? These are central questions for a series of guest columns on… Read More »21st-century virtues and vices: collecting stories from the field
On the 23rd of September, project member Anne Por gave a talk at the conference of Driburger Kreis, which had ‘Toxikalität’ as a theme this year. Anne spoke about ‘Hodegetik: A Way of Warning Students about ‘Toxic’ Scholarly Habits, 1700-1900′. Read more about the conference at: https://www.gwmt.de/netzwerke/driburger-kreis-studierende-und-promovierende/.
Herman Paul’s inaugural address as Professor of the History of the Humanities at Leiden University will take place on January 15, 2021, 4:15pm. Attendance in the Academy Building will be limited, due to Covid-19, but a livestream will be available. In his address, Paul will use the case of “critical thinking” to illustrate how a longue durée, comparative history of the humanities might look like – and what we can… Read More »Inaugural address
Four members of the ‘Scholarly Vices’ project will present their projects at the Scientiae conference 2021. The conference will take place at the University of Amsterdam, from 9-12 June 2021. More information can be found at http://scientiae.co.uk/amsterdam-2021/
On 3 December 2020, Herman Paul will give a talk on “Virtues and Vices in 21st-Century Academia: Historical and Research Ethical Perspectives” at the (online) annual symposium of the Netherlands Research Integrity Network. For more information, see https://nrin.nl/news-blog/nrin-research-symposium.
What happens when you are a graduate student writing a thesis on how graduate students in the past were advised to write a thesis? Or how can you examine virtues of scholarly inquiry without pretending that you possess all those virtues yourself? Herman Paul comments on these and other fascinating aspects of the “Scholarly Vices” project in a video interview with the Huizinga Institute: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErFhvZ8hVwo&feature=youtu.be.
In October 2020, a large survey on research integrity was launched in the Netherlands. As member of the steering committee, Herman Paul shared his expectations of the survey in an English-language interview at https://www.nsri2020.nl/post/an-interview-with-herman-paul.