Vol 1 No 2: Aboagora: Rethinking Enlightenmenthttps://www.doria.fi:443/handle/10024/1343892024-03-28T14:11:24Z2024-03-28T14:11:24ZReflectionsBehar, RuthVikström, BjörnSalmi, HannuIllman, Ruthhttps://www.doria.fi:443/handle/10024/1345282017-09-23T05:17:06Z2017-04-19T12:39:41ZReflections
Behar, Ruth; Vikström, Björn; Salmi, Hannu; Illman, Ruth
This final section presents a literary excerpt and three personal reflections on the theme of Aboagora, as well as on the experience of taking part in Aboagora. It opens with a story written by Ruth Behar, dealing with her personal experience of mastering the English language. Professor Behar read this story as an artistic comment within a workshop entitled ‘Between Art and Research: Rethinking Professional Borderlands’, which dealt with the experiences of people who combine an academic professional career with artistic work. The story is followed by a personal reflection by Bishop Björn Vikström, presented within the context of a session dealing with objectivity and the problem of combining academic research with personal engagement and activism. Finally, two of the organisers of the Aboagora conference, Professor Hannu Salmi and Dr Ruth Illman, reflect on the outcome of the event, evaluating the new insights and perspectives it has facilitated, as well as looking to the future and the potential of Aboagora to develop into a permanent forum for encounters between the arts and sciences.
2017-04-19T12:39:41ZDare to know, dare to tell, dare to playNowotny, Helgahttps://www.doria.fi:443/handle/10024/1345272017-09-23T05:17:04Z2017-04-19T12:33:56ZDare to know, dare to tell, dare to play
Nowotny, Helga
In her concluding statement summarising the discussions and themes presented during the workshops, lectures and concerts of the Aboagora symposium, Helga Nowotny underlines the need for researchers to be courageous and creative as they rethink the Enlightenment heritage in their various fields of research. Researchers today are part of an enormous epochal transformation in science, technology and institution building, she claims. This is a world largely of our own making which provides new opportunities as well as challenges and in which the future cannot be known. Yet, Nowotny points out, we continue with the desire to influence the future and we try to prepare for the encounter with a messy world of enormous complexity, uncertainty and contingency around us. In this situation, she concludes, music can provide science with an important lesson, namely: it is played. Playfulness can provide one possible mode to prepare for the future: by playing one learns to explore and to trust one’s own curiosity. Thus, the Enlightenment is unfinished, but it is also exciting in being unfinished.
Helga Nowotny, Vienna Science and Technology Fund
Helga Nowotny is Professor emerita of Social Studies of Science, ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) and a founding member and President of the European Research Council (ERC). She holds a PhD in sociology from Columbia University (NY) and a doctorate in jurisprudence from the University of Vienna. Her current host institution is the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF). Helga Nowotny is Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the University of Vienna and member of many other international Advisory Boards and selection committees. She is a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and long standing member the Academia Europaea. Helga Nowotny has published more than 300 articles in scientific journals. Her latest book publications include Naked Genes: Reinventing the Human in the Molecular Age (with Giuseppe Testa, MIT Press 2011), Insatiable Curiosity: Innovation in a Fragile Future (MIT Press 2008) and Cultures of Technology and the Quest for Innovation (ed.) (New York & London 2006). She is also a member of the advisory board of Aboagora.
2017-04-19T12:33:56ZThe critics of false culture: On the Finnish reception of the EnlightenmentRantala, Helihttps://www.doria.fi:443/handle/10024/1345252017-09-23T05:17:04Z2017-04-19T12:27:11ZThe critics of false culture: On the Finnish reception of the Enlightenment
Rantala, Heli
Heli Rantala’s contribution discusses the heritage of the Enlightenment from the perspective of Finnish nineteenth century cultural discourse. She argues that the Finnish reception of the Enlightenment had a negative tone. This critical attitude was expressed amongst Finnish intellectuals throughout the nineteenth century. The main target of the critique was the French style Enlightenment and the French way of life in general, which was understood to be civilised but lacking in the idea of real culture. Rantala also states that J. V. Snellman opposed this dominant interpretation by highlighting the importance of the Enlightenment era and by cherishing the basic values of its ideas.
Heli Rantala, University of Turku
Heli Rantala (MA) works at the Department of Cultural History at the University of Turku as a coordinator and researcher. Her research interests include nineteenth century conceptions of culture in Finnish discourse. She is finishing her doctoral thesis on Johan Wilhelm Snellman’s historical thinking. She has published several articles on her research topic.
2017-04-19T12:27:11ZFriedrich Schlegels early Romantic notion of religion in relation to two presuppositions of the EnlightenmentNivala, Askohttps://www.doria.fi:443/handle/10024/1345082017-09-23T05:17:03Z2017-04-19T10:13:13ZFriedrich Schlegels early Romantic notion of religion in relation to two presuppositions of the Enlightenment
Nivala, Asko
German early Romanticism was an intellectual movement that originated in the era between the great French Revolution of 1789 and the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars in 1803. Usually, it is defined in contrast to the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment is presented as the age of reason, criticism and scientific naturalism, while the Romantics are portrayed as its reactionary enemies. According to a still customary prejudice, Romanticism was the age of exaggerated emotions, authoritarian dogmatism and mystical superstition. However, our notion of the Enlightenment has undergone changes in recent decades. Because the traditional antagonism between Aufklärung and Frühromantik has become questionable, the Romantic revival of religion needs reconsideration. In this paper, Nivala proposes an argument why the Romantics did not fall into reactionary irrationalism. His discussion focuses on one person, Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829). Nivala presents how two vital presuppositions of the Enlightenment, naturalism and criticism, were reinterpreted by Schlegel as pantheism and mysticism.
Asko Nivala, University of Turku
Asko Nivala (MA) is a doctoral student in cultural history at the University of Turku. He received his MA degree in 2007. His research focuses on German early Romanticism and especially on Friedrich Schlegel, who was one of the most famous members of the Romantic movement in Jena in the 1790s. In his study, Nivala disentangles the cultural implications which underlie the early Romantic philosophy of history. One of his essential research methods is the metaphorological analysis of philosophical concepts. His PhD research is funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation. His other research interests include the philosophy of history, the German Enlightenment and the recent discussion on political theology. Besides his academic work, Nivala is also an internationally acknowledged performance artist as a member of Finnish performance group MRCVE.
2017-04-19T10:13:13Z