From the biblical Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II, who roamed for seven years as an ox, to the ... more From the biblical Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II, who roamed for seven years as an ox, to the shapeshifting witches that abound in Early Modern trial records, accounts of humans behaving like other animals, tales and testimonies of those who could shift form, and stories of people who did not identify as part of mankind, have been present in history. After their death certificate had been issued by an Enlightenment proud of leaving behind all irrational obscurities, people who belonged to a kind other than the human sprung from the blind spots of modernity, and have grown strong and visible for the last four decades. In fact, with postmodernity the narratives of those who share the rejection of their full humanity and an entangled sympathy with other beings have taken a new critical role: they pose a simply, uncomfortable question: what does it mean to be human?
Monstrosity and the European Renaissance Man. I explored some publications from Early Modern phys... more Monstrosity and the European Renaissance Man. I explored some publications from Early Modern physicians, as well as some Late Medieval accounts of encounters of monsters, to conclude that monsters and monstrosity have played an important role in managing the relation between categories such as the Natural, the Divine, Man and the artificial, and the distribution of creativity among them. This role was by no means central, but in fact marginal: it was by inhabiting the margins of maps, writings and conceptions that monsters helped to erect the figure of Man as the sole Reader of God.
What does it mean to belong to a discipline? To be the continuation of a pre-determined body of k... more What does it mean to belong to a discipline? To be the continuation of a pre-determined body of knowledge?, the enunciator of a given discourse?, the extension of a preceding set of methods?, to relate with objects and instruments in ways that were already there? To be part of a discipline: is it not then to be its embodied extension? Does one enter discipline or is one taken by it? Where is the active subject? Wh@ is handling and wh@ is being handled?
We have not known modern science without knowing industrialization; and we haven’t known either without knowing discipline. There where it all changed, what can we say of their relationships? How were bodies, instruments and truths entangled? Did one precede the others? Do bodies have a history - just as truths? Are truths are constructed - just as instruments? Do instruments have agencies - just as bodies?
Machine ,devices and instruments – do they belong to disciplines just the way we do? Is modern science a human affair? Or may cyborgs take the floor?
For a long time, it is said, we endured a disciplinary regime. All the knowledge we produced, the... more For a long time, it is said, we endured a disciplinary regime. All the knowledge we produced, the story goes, was boxed, limited, demarked by a sectionalist paradigm. Given the restrictive nature of these constructions, there would be no other reasonable position than to fight this tradition and defend the communication between disciplines. Such is the discourse of interdisciplinarity.
There seems, however, to be something oddly similar between what interdisciplinarity intends to fight and that which it proposes; as if once again the speech about rupture was not only the perpetuation of the established order, but even its reinforcing.
Where and why did interdisciplinary make its appearance?
From the biblical Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II, who roamed for seven years as an ox, to the ... more From the biblical Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II, who roamed for seven years as an ox, to the shapeshifting witches that abound in Early Modern trial records, accounts of humans behaving like other animals, tales and testimonies of those who could shift form, and stories of people who did not identify as part of mankind, have been present in history. After their death certificate had been issued by an Enlightenment proud of leaving behind all irrational obscurities, people who belonged to a kind other than the human sprung from the blind spots of modernity, and have grown strong and visible for the last four decades. In fact, with postmodernity the narratives of those who share the rejection of their full humanity and an entangled sympathy with other beings have taken a new critical role: they pose a simply, uncomfortable question: what does it mean to be human?
Monstrosity and the European Renaissance Man. I explored some publications from Early Modern phys... more Monstrosity and the European Renaissance Man. I explored some publications from Early Modern physicians, as well as some Late Medieval accounts of encounters of monsters, to conclude that monsters and monstrosity have played an important role in managing the relation between categories such as the Natural, the Divine, Man and the artificial, and the distribution of creativity among them. This role was by no means central, but in fact marginal: it was by inhabiting the margins of maps, writings and conceptions that monsters helped to erect the figure of Man as the sole Reader of God.
What does it mean to belong to a discipline? To be the continuation of a pre-determined body of k... more What does it mean to belong to a discipline? To be the continuation of a pre-determined body of knowledge?, the enunciator of a given discourse?, the extension of a preceding set of methods?, to relate with objects and instruments in ways that were already there? To be part of a discipline: is it not then to be its embodied extension? Does one enter discipline or is one taken by it? Where is the active subject? Wh@ is handling and wh@ is being handled?
We have not known modern science without knowing industrialization; and we haven’t known either without knowing discipline. There where it all changed, what can we say of their relationships? How were bodies, instruments and truths entangled? Did one precede the others? Do bodies have a history - just as truths? Are truths are constructed - just as instruments? Do instruments have agencies - just as bodies?
Machine ,devices and instruments – do they belong to disciplines just the way we do? Is modern science a human affair? Or may cyborgs take the floor?
For a long time, it is said, we endured a disciplinary regime. All the knowledge we produced, the... more For a long time, it is said, we endured a disciplinary regime. All the knowledge we produced, the story goes, was boxed, limited, demarked by a sectionalist paradigm. Given the restrictive nature of these constructions, there would be no other reasonable position than to fight this tradition and defend the communication between disciplines. Such is the discourse of interdisciplinarity.
There seems, however, to be something oddly similar between what interdisciplinarity intends to fight and that which it proposes; as if once again the speech about rupture was not only the perpetuation of the established order, but even its reinforcing.
Where and why did interdisciplinary make its appearance?
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We have not known modern science without knowing industrialization; and we haven’t known either without knowing discipline. There where it all changed, what can we say of their relationships? How were bodies, instruments and truths entangled? Did one precede the others? Do bodies have a history - just as truths? Are truths are constructed - just as instruments? Do instruments have agencies - just as bodies?
Machine ,devices and instruments – do they belong to disciplines just the way we do? Is modern science a human affair? Or may cyborgs take the floor?
There seems, however, to be something oddly similar between what interdisciplinarity intends to fight and that which it proposes; as if once again the speech about rupture was not only the perpetuation of the established order, but even its reinforcing.
Where and why did interdisciplinary make its appearance?
We have not known modern science without knowing industrialization; and we haven’t known either without knowing discipline. There where it all changed, what can we say of their relationships? How were bodies, instruments and truths entangled? Did one precede the others? Do bodies have a history - just as truths? Are truths are constructed - just as instruments? Do instruments have agencies - just as bodies?
Machine ,devices and instruments – do they belong to disciplines just the way we do? Is modern science a human affair? Or may cyborgs take the floor?
There seems, however, to be something oddly similar between what interdisciplinarity intends to fight and that which it proposes; as if once again the speech about rupture was not only the perpetuation of the established order, but even its reinforcing.
Where and why did interdisciplinary make its appearance?