Under the title "The Structure of Humanistic Revolution," this conference will critically explore the transformations that have shaped the history of the humanities. Drawing inspiration from Thomas Kuhn's seminal work "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," we will engage in a reflective analysis of how "revolutions" within humanistic disciplines have been conceptualized, contested, and institutionalized over time.
Kuhn's framework was famously anchored in the "Copernican Revolution," where Nicolaus Copernicus' heliocentric theory radically shifted humanity's understanding of the universe. This paradigm shift became central to Kuhn's theory of how scientific revolutions occur. In the context of the humanities, however, the nature of revolutions demands a more critical reading. Can we apply Kuhn's concept of paradigm shifts to the history of the humanities, or do the transformations in this domain follow a different, more fragmented, and culturally situated trajectory?
While Copernicus' work symbolizes a clean break from previous models in the natural sciences, revolutions in the humanities often involve the reworking of intellectual traditions, the reinterpretation of established knowledge, and the infusion of new cultural and social dynamics. This conference will interrogate these differences, critically reflecting on how humanistic revolutions have been structured and whether they can truly be called "revolutions" in the Kuhnian sense.