Integrating the History of Science and History of Humanities (HSHH)
HSHH is a Scientific Research Network sponsored by the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO). Bringing together nine international partners, the network explores what happens when we view the relation between the natural and the human sciences through the lens of their intertwined histories. This integrated perspective opens new questions, emphasising similarities, exchanges, and circulation between both fields. The network organises annual workshops and fosters collaborative research among scholars at its partner institutes.
Overview
This research network seeks not to theorize or historicize the division of ‘science’ vs. ‘humanities’ itself. That is, it does not reify the ‘two cultures’ – as C.P. Snow famously called them – through an attempt to make them speak to one another. Rather, this program aims to recover similarity, exchange, and circulation between them, and to do so by taking on board a global-comparative perspective when desirable. It explores how the sciences and humanities always occupied one world, always talked to one another, always had similar habits and customs and ideas. Instead of merely juxtaposing 'hard' and 'soft' sciences and tracing their interactions, this collaborative venture examines just how 'soft' that border between them always was — despite appearances to the contrary.
