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18 June 2020 -
15:00 - 17:00
NIAS@Home
1012 CG Amsterdam

Understanding Knowledge in the Low Countries

NIAS Seminar

Seminar by members of the Descartes theme group, who research how understandings of knowledge were shaped through processes of acquisition, ownership, allocation, use, and institutionalization in the global knowledge society of the early modern Low Countries.

Understanding Knowledge in the Low Countries 1500 - 1900

This long duree history of changing conceptions and designations of knowledge builds on existing scholarship on early modern knowledge societies and provides much-needed insight in the formation and modification of understandings of knowledge.

Understandings of knowledge are notoriously complicated in historiography. The use of concepts is fluid, multi-layered, and they have various, context-specific meanings. Moreover, interpretations and uses change over time. This makes it hard to speak of stable, well-defined practices or domains of knowing. Such conceptual unclarity is a particularly relevant problem for the history of knowledge. This group takes up the challenge by developing a multidisciplinary collection of essays discussing changing uses and understandings of knowledge in the Low Countries from roughly 1500- 1900.

About NIAS Seminars

NIAS Seminars are aimed to stimulate scientific cross-pollination within the NIAS academic community and discuss work-in-progress. Attendance is online and by invitation. If you are interested in attending, please contact NIAS.