Dr Harry Oosterhuis (H.)

Bachelor courses Arts and Culture:

Disenchantment and Ideology: Democracy, Industry and Science in the 19th Century (including Research and Writing skills training)

Co-ordinator: Harry Oosterhuis

Period: first year, February-March
Credits: 10

Objectives:understanding the political, social-economic and cultural modernisation of European society from the late 18th until the early 20th century; writing and oral presentation skills.

Content:In the 19th century, the western world experienced a profound transformation. Traditional, predominantly agrarian and artisan society made way for an industrial one; the hierarchical social order was challenged by growing individualism; and the absolutist monarchy was gradually replaced by parliamentary democracy and suffrage. The French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution marked the beginning of this process of modernisation. Modernisation profoundly changed the view of man and society. Society was no longer viewed as immutably anchored in tradition or God’s will; the idea of social design, the desire to create a better or perfect world, is a crucial characteristic of the modern way of thinking. It seemed as if the future could be shaped in a rational manner. The idea of social design entailed political conflicts and struggles about the reconstruction of society and these were based on political ideologies such as liberalism, conservatism, socialism, and nationalism. A new view of man and society also emerged in science, in biomedical science and sociology in particular. The traditional view of the world and man's position in it was dominated by Christian religion as well as magic and symbolic thinking. The Enlightenment and science paved the way for a secular world-view, in which man was not so much considered as a special being because God had endowed him of her with a soul and his or her moral destiny lay beyond this world. More and more man was viewed and studied as a natural and social being. In this course the rise of modern society will be studied from the perspective of the fundamental ambiguities of this transformation. On the one hand, modernisation was a process of liberation: liberation from the shackles of traditional society, from age-old social hierarchies, from authoritative and oppressive political structures, and from dogmatic ways of thinking. On the other hand modernisation resulted in new problems such as disruption and disorientation and it also implied the need to adapt to new rules, pressures, and disciplinary systems. 

Skills training Debates among Historians

Co-ordinator: Harry Oosterhuis

Period: first year, February-March
Credits:3.0

Objectives:Understanding the nature of historical interpretation and debate
Content:Interpretation and controversy about interpretation belong to the core of the historical profession. The aim of the skills training is to gain insight into the nature of historical debates. This is achieved by studying some of these debates, the subject matter of which is related to that of the course 'Disenchantment and Ideology'. Examples are taken from the historical debates on the nature and causes of the French Revolution as well as from a number of interconnected controversies about Germany's role in the turbulent history of the twentieth century, with its two world wars, the Third Reich and the Holocaust.

The Design of Man
Co-ordinator:Harry Oosterhuis

Period: second year, April-May

Credits:12.0
Objectives:understanding the history of and recent developments of the life and human sciences in the context of modern society; writing and presenting a research outline.

Content: Are people like machines, something that can be assembled? What only recently seemed inconceivable is apparently becoming reality these days. Bio-technologists have taken first steps towards producing life outside the bounds of 'natural' reproduction. Techniques such as artificial insemination, in-vitro fertilisation and embryo transplantation look like a piece of cake compared to what biomedical engineers hold in store for us: living tissues created in test tubes, organs produced in the laboratory, gene therapy to prevent illness and, the ultimate feat, the ability to clone people. The idea of designing man is age old: its foundation was laid in Enlightenment. Freed from divine providence and tradition, man would obtain the chance to define his fate by being able, thanks to scientific insight, to shape his very nature according to his will - an ideal that would flourish in the 19th and 20th centuries. In this course design (but also its limitations) is the starting-point for studying the history and current developments of life sciences and humanities. The question of the design of body, mind and behaviour will be investigated in the context of several fundamental controversies in the 19th and 20th history of life sciences and human sciences. Design also offers an approach to investigate the social role of these sciences. The growth of scientific knowledge about man cannot be considered without taking account of the increasing regulation of human life in modern society. How are we to assess this development? Is this a matter of 'discipline' forced on people? Or does modern man have a strong need for scientific knowledge to give direction and shape to his life, partly because that knowledge crucially increases his options?

Research Master Cultures of Arts, Science and Technology (CAST)

Researching Mediations of Body and Mind

Co-ordinator:Harry Oosterhuis

Period: first year, February-March

Credits:12.0
Objectives:an introduction to theories on different forms of mediation in several scientific disciplines and how to use them as research tools; how to do research for a case-study and how to relate an empirical case-study to broader theoretical and methodological issues.
Content:The course is about the ways in which scientific knowledge about man has been mediated in language (narratives, metaphors), material artefacts (architecture, machines), and (possibly) visual images as well as the ways how scientific knowledge is represented in society by representations of the bodies and minds of scientists. These mediations emerged particularly in those areas where different scientific disciplines and scientific cultures (the natural sciences, the social sciences and the humanities) affect one another and also in the areas where science and its social and cultural context come together. Such mediations can illuminate underlying affinities between different disciplines as well as between scientific knowledge and other kinds of cultural discourse. Scientific knowledge rarely refers directly to social and political issues, but it often does so in a mediated way. These mediations can shed light on overlapping ways of thinking in different disciplines and can pinpoint how science is located in its social and cultural context: certain concepts, styles of reasoning, images, and technological artefacts appear to have equal explanatory power in both the realms of body/mind and society. They inhabit the borderland between disciplines and between science and the wider culture, connect nature and technology, and link discourses about the individual and about society. How did these mediations organise, structure, represent, and innovate our knowledge of body and mind? How did they determine the way this knowledge was disseminated in society? How were they transferred from science to the wider culture and vice versa? How did they link up scientific knowledge with the much larger web of its technological, ethical, social and political entanglements?