Dialogues Between the Cultural and Social Sciences

The German tradition of sociology of culture is internationally recognised; following from the British model of cultural studies, the cultural sciences have long ventured analyses of society and power. Yet when attempts are made to bring together disciplinary formations in the social and cultural sciences, already differentiated in themselves, cooperation often remains limited to worn routines: sociologists citing from literary works to illustrate social contexts; literary scholars applying social theories to lend relevance to their interpretations of novels. On both sides, this means “using” elements of the other research field in ways that are not always well thought out – as a theory lecture or rhetorical strategy; as a reference to concepts and individual works whose aptness and claims to exemplary validity are not always verified.

At KWI, we take on concrete topics that – ideally – generate a less asymmetrical form of cooperation between researchers in the humanities and social sciences. We have explored social productivity and the aesthetic affordances of social figures, along with the cultural labour carried out by lists; we have analysed microtopoi and institutional novels, and shed reciprocal light on practices of ending and the poetry of reform. Two newer collaborative projects at and close to KWI will facilitate deep investigation into what a cultural and technological history of cooling and a sociology of sweating can learn from each other in terms of methodology.

With an eye to joint research in particular, we can determine more precisely which theoretical approaches from the humanities and social sciences are mutually exclusive and which are complementary – and how methods can be integrated rather than merely tacked on to one another. Might it even be possible to build a common terminology and to write in collaboration beyond the boundaries of different subjects and disciplinary complexes? When based in praxis and theory, the explication of disciplinary routines of reading and writing, collecting, observing, describing, interpreting, and arguing can give rise to foundations for convincing cooperations between cultural and social sciences.