The Office of the Provost cordially invites you to the third lecture in the
Humanities and Social Sciences Lecture Series
“Synergies and Critique in the Humanities and the Social Sciences” is the theme of the first of a series of lectures organized by the Provost’s Office. The series explores points of engagement between the humanities and the social sciences, through lectures and seminars delivered by leading scholars working at the interface of the two areas. The series is part of a wider initiative at CEU to promote the humanities and their continued engagement with the social sciences.
‘Why Some Social Sciences Can’t Be Separated from the Humanities’
delivered by
Rajeev Bhargava
Professor, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi
Chair: Prem Kumar Rajaram
Associate Provost, Social Sciences and Humanities
If social sciences are modeled on the natural sciences, then an unbridgeable chasm appears between social sciences and humanities.
But such modelling utterly distorts the subject matter of our study, namely human beings. If such distortion is to be avoided and human beings are to be properly understood and explained, then we must begin to realize that humanities are at the heart of social science. Bhargava argues that human beings are irreducibly social, that the social is largely constituted by linguistic and other types of meanings and to understand these meanings, the methods of philosophy, history and even literature are indispensable.
Date: Monday, June 2, 2014 Time: 5:30 p.m.
Venue: Popper Room (Nador u. 9)
Rajeev BHaRgava is currently Professor, CSDS and was its Director from 2007-2014. He has been a Professor at the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and between 2001 and 2005 was Head, Department of Political Science, University of Delhi. He is Professorial Fellow, ACU, Sydney and Honorary Fellow, Balliol College, Oxford Universty. Bhargava did his BA in economics from the University of Delhi, and MPhil and DPhil from Oxford University. He has been a Fellow at Harvard University, University of Bristol, Institute of Advanced Studies, Jerusalem, Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin, and the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna. He has also been Distinguished Resident Scholar, Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life, Columbia University, and Asia Chair at Sciences Po, Paris. Bhargava has held visiting professorships at several universities.
Bhargava’s publications include Individualism in Social Science (1992), What is Political Theory and Why Do We Need It? (2010), and The Promise of India’s Secular Democracy (2010). His edited works are Secularism and Its Critics (1998) and Politics and Ethics of the Indian Constitution (2008). His work on secularism and methodological individualism is internationally acclaimed. He has contributed to the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Oxford Handbook of Political Theory. Bhargava is on the advisory board of several national and international institutions, and was a consultant for the UNDP report on cultural liberty.
