Search

The European Research Council (ERC) funding scheme classifies law within the social sciences and humanities sector, identifying legal science as a social science. The paper presents the case-study of such a classification as a deterministic model of evaluation and assessment of legal research. This may impact on career opportunities of individuals as well as on scientific independence, tacitly predefining the selection of research topics and legal methodology. The paper argues that ERC encourages a successful trend of conducting legal research to obtain funding, through the application of indicators. Their aim is to show which process has been followed to achieve and measure results. Legal science then risks being reduced to the analysis of legal performance. In this context, re-reading some writings of Polanyi on social sciences as well as on the critique of economic determinism sheds light on forms of academic determinism that affect the way of carrying-out research. El sistema de financiación del Consejo Europeo de Investigación (CEI) clasifica el Derecho dentro del sector de las ciencias sociales y las humanidades, e identifica la ciencia jurídica como una ciencia social. Este artículo presenta el caso práctico de dicha clasificación como modelo determinista de evaluación y valoración de la investigación jurídica, lo cual puede repercutir en las oportunidades profesionales de las personas, así como en la independencia científica, al predefinir tácitamente la selección de los temas de investigación y la metodología jurídica. El artículo sostiene que el CEI fomenta una tendencia de éxito en la realización de investigaciones jurídicas para obtener financiación, mediante la aplicación de indicadores. Su objetivo es mostrar qué proceso se ha seguido para alcanzar y medir los resultados. La ciencia jurídica corre entonces el riesgo de reducirse al análisis del rendimiento jurídico. En este contexto, la relectura de algunos escritos de Polanyi sobre las ciencias sociales, así como sobre la crítica del determinismo económico, arroja luz sobre las formas de determinismo académico que afectan a la forma de llevar a cabo la investigación.

This paper aims to briefly discuss the concept of the Anthropocene within the geological sciences, and to consider, more broadly, some of the theoretical unfolding of the term within the humanities. Towards its conclusion, the paper presents the demands the Anthropocene makes, as a geological Epoch (in which the human becomes a geophysical force, capable of changing the Earth’s biophysical systems), of literary studies as a possible field for theoretical articulations that may add to the debates on this historical moment in which climate change, forced dislocations, the mass extinction of several species, and other urgent matters come to the fore.

La propuesta de este texto es seguir la línea de pensamiento del filósofo francés Jacques Rancière al abordar el trabajo teórico freudiano como dislocado de su tiempo histórico, es decir de las formulaciones teóricas absortas en el positivismo que hacían de las humanidades una práctica científica. Rancière observa que el trabajo interpretativo y teórico de Freud se ubica en una lógica estética que rompe con la definición clásica de ésta e inaugura un pensamiento más allá de la lógica moderna. Consecuentemente este trabajo abordará una conceptualización de modernidad, la desarrollada por Michel Foucault en el texto The Politics of Truth (1997), para pasar luego a los Cínicos griegos como vía hacia la propuesta de Jacques Rancière en El inconsciente estético (2005) donde plantea a Freud como pensador estético. This paper proposes to follow the french philosopher Jacques Rancière’s thougth when tackling Freud’s theoretical work as dislocated from its historical time, that is from the theoretical formulations captivated in the positivism that would make humanities a scientific practice. In others words this work understands Freudian’s texts beyond the very extended positivism in the humanities at those times. Jacques Rancière points out that Freudian’s interpretative and theoretical work breaks a classic aesthetic logic creating a new way of thinking beyond modern logic. Consequently, this paper will focus on the conceptualization of modernity developed by Michel Foucault in his work The Politics of Truth (1997). Later on, it will approach the Greek Cynics as a path towards understanding Jacques Rancière’s proposal in El inconsciente estético (2005), in which Freud is presented as an aesthetic thinker.

This paper presents the results of a study focused on the analysis of student texts in three disciplines from the humanities. The aim of the study was to determine, from a systemic functional standpoint and through a transitivity analysis of process types (HALLIDAY, 1994), how different fields of knowledge and experience are construed in student texts. In the analysis, we considered 80 texts written by undergraduate students of literature, history and geography. The texts belong to four different genres: essay, question-answer, review and report and were all written in Spanish. The methodology included a quantitative and qualitative analysis of process type realizations of each text, followed by a comparative analysis between the disciplines and between the genres considered in each one. The results showed both the similarities that unite these disciplines as part of the humanities area and the differences that reflect their specific fields of knowledge and construction of meanings.

Ever more often, researchers and scholars endeavor to situate law in its social, political, historical and cultural contexts. At the same time, there is a need to invest law and the social sciences with new roles and resources. We thus propose to look for the many intersections of law, culture and the humanities by presenting four topical preoccupations: (1) interlegality in everyday life; (2) the synesthesia of law; (3) material socio-legal studies; and (4) interactive ecologies of knowledges and methodologies. This will constitute part one of the paper. Parts two and three will look at two particular and very recent interdisciplinary relationships: those between law and music and between law and food. We thus propose it would be appropriate to expose students, learners and practitioners of all kinds to the difference that an understanding of the links between law, culture and the humanities makes.

Translation Studies is a relatively new discipline, formerly at the margins of traditional academic departments, that has not only expanded but has been reinstated into the center of the humanities. In the past half-century the field has become a dynamic inter-discipline, transforming research and teaching in a number of fields, including language studies, linguistics, cultural studies, and social sciences. This paper examines the present state of the field and outlines trending research developments that have implications for translation pedagogy.

This paper discusses the possible significations of a so-called anthropological turn in the field of the Humanities and Arts. The text focuses on the meaning of Anthropology and its application in these fields. In this sense, two great conceptions of Anthropology are distinguished: an understanding of Anthropology as an attempt at a singular, meta-historical and transcultural determination of a valid definition of what it means to be human; and another whose use predominates in the Anglo-American contemporary context, in which different ways of being human are considered, instead of a single conception. The text also discusses the word ‘reviravolta’ [overturn] which the Humanities and the Arts have been trying to point out and identify as what is or should be the contemporary thought in those fields.

This paper discusses the possible significations of a so-called anthropological turn in the field of the Humanities and Arts. The text focuses on the meaning of Anthropology and its application in these fields. In this sense, two great conceptions of Anthropology are distinguished: an understanding of Anthropology as an attempt at a singular, meta-historical and transcultural determination of a valid definition of what it means to be human; and another whose use predominates in the Anglo-American contemporary context, in which different ways of being human are considered, instead of a single conception. The text also discusses the word ‘reviravolta’ [overturn] which the Humanities and the Arts have been trying to point out and identify as what is or should be the contemporary thought in those fields.