Clifford Siskin's guest appearances

Clifford Siskin

The Hauenstein Center Collection

CRASSH

Michael Puett

John Locke

David Brooks

James Joyce

Christy Coleman

Caitlin Zaloom

Ron White

John Keats

David Spiegelhalter

Kwame Anthony Appiah

Ronald Reagan

Gerald Russello

Robert George

Matthew Continetti

Bhaskar Sunkara

OwlTail

In this episode, we hear from Clifford Siskin, the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Professor of English and American Literature at NYU, as well as Director of the Re:Enlightenment Project. Siskin discusses his recent book "System: The Shaping of Modern Knowledge."

44: Clifford Siskin on "System: The Shaping of Modern Knowledge"

This is the second of two Leverhulme Re:Enlightenment Lectures by Clifford Siskin (Henry W and Alfred A Berg Professor of English and American Literature, New York University; Director, The Re:Enlightenment Project) who is currently a Leverhulme Visiting Professor at CRASSH.The video of the first lecture When System Met History: The Tectonics of the Modern Disciplines held on Tuesday 5 March 2013 is online here. These lectures examine how knowledge gets stuck and the strategies for restarting it.  Ranging from past to present--and back--they link Galileo's and Bacon’s efforts to advance knowledge to efforts to scale up to new possibilities today.  The first lecture highlights the “good fortune” (Bacon) of new tools, by debuting one.  Like Galileo's spyglass, "Tectonics" zooms in--in this case, to clarify how our modern disciplines emerged from Enlightenment.  The second lecture zooms out to reconsider the history of science in terms of Newton choosing "system" as his tool for guesswork.Together, these lectures explore the conditions of possibility for a centre such as CRASSH--a collaborative effort to reconnect the arts, social sciences and humanities.  The first condition is the division of knowledge into those categories, with their second-order divisions into the narrow but deep disciplines of modernity.  The second condition is that we think that there’s something to gain by this reconnect—that knowledge needs new forms of guesswork now.  That thought—that we have a historically-specific opportunity for reorganizing and advancing knowledge—is also central to the The Re:Enlightenment Project's effort to explain and transform our Enlightenment inheritance.  These lectures are not an effort to study Re:Enlightenment but to enact it.

This is the second of two Leverhulme Re:Enlightenment Lectures by Clifford Siskin (Henry W and Alfred A Berg Professor of English and American Literature, New York University; Director, The Re:Enlightenment Project) who is currently a Leverhulme Visiting Professor at CRASSH. The video of the first lecture When System Met History: The Tectonics of the Modern Disciplines held on Tuesday 5 March 2013 is online here. These lectures examine how knowledge gets stuck and the strategies for restarting it. Ranging from past to present--and back--they link Galileo's and Bacon’s efforts to advance knowledge to efforts to scale up to new possibilities today. The first lecture highlights the “good fortune” (Bacon) of new tools, by debuting one. Like Galileo's spyglass, "Tectonics" zooms in--in this case, to clarify how our modern disciplines emerged from Enlightenment. The second lecture zooms out to reconsider the history of science in terms of Newton choosing "system" as his tool for guesswork. Together, these lectures explore the conditions of possibility for a centre such as CRASSH--a collaborative effort to reconnect the arts, social sciences and humanities. The first condition is the division of knowledge into those categories, with their second-order divisions into the narrow but deep disciplines of modernity. The second condition is that we think that there’s something to gain by this reconnect—that knowledge needs new forms of guesswork now. That thought—that we have a historically-specific opportunity for reorganizing and advancing knowledge—is also central to the The Re:Enlightenment Project's effort to explain and transform our Enlightenment inheritance. These lectures are not an effort to study Re:Enlightenment but to enact it.

Professor Clifford Siskin - 29 April 2013 - Guesswork: System, Science, and the Advancement of Knowledge

This is the first of two Leverhulme Re:Enlightenment Lectures by Clifford Siskin (Henry W and Alfred A Berg Professor of English and American Literature, New York University; Director, The Re:Enlightenment Project) who is currently a Leverhulme Visiting Professor at CRASSH.The second lecture, Guesswork: System, Science, and the Advancement of Knowledge, will be held on Monday 29 April 2013.These lectures examine how knowledge gets stuck and the strategies for restarting it.  Ranging from past to present--and back--they link Galileo's and Bacon’s efforts to advance knowledge to efforts to scale up to new possibilities today.  The first lecture highlights the “good fortune” (Bacon) of new tools, by debuting one.  Like Galileo's spyglass, "Tectonics" zooms in--in this case, to clarify how our modern disciplines emerged from Enlightenment.  The second lecture zooms out to reconsider the history of science in terms of Newton choosing "system" as his tool for guesswork.Together, these lectures explore the conditions of possibility for a centre such as CRASSH--a collaborative effort to reconnect the arts, social sciences and humanities.  The first condition is the division of knowledge into those categories, with their second-order divisions into the narrow but deep disciplines of modernity.  The second condition is that we think that there’s something to gain by this reconnect—that knowledge needs new forms of guesswork now.  That thought—that we have a historically-specific opportunity for reorganizing and advancing knowledge—is also central to the The Re:Enlightenment Project's effort to explain and transform our Enlightenment inheritance.  These lectures are not an effort to study Re:Enlightenment but to enact it.

This is the first of two Leverhulme Re:Enlightenment Lectures by Clifford Siskin (Henry W and Alfred A Berg Professor of English and American Literature, New York University; Director, The Re:Enlightenment Project) who is currently a Leverhulme Visiting Professor at CRASSH. The second lecture, Guesswork: System, Science, and the Advancement of Knowledge, will be held on Monday 29 April 2013. These lectures examine how knowledge gets stuck and the strategies for restarting it. Ranging from past to present--and back--they link Galileo's and Bacon’s efforts to advance knowledge to efforts to scale up to new possibilities today. The first lecture highlights the “good fortune” (Bacon) of new tools, by debuting one. Like Galileo's spyglass, "Tectonics" zooms in--in this case, to clarify how our modern disciplines emerged from Enlightenment. The second lecture zooms out to reconsider the history of science in terms of Newton choosing "system" as his tool for guesswork. Together, these lectures explore the conditions of possibility for a centre such as CRASSH--a collaborative effort to reconnect the arts, social sciences and humanities. The first condition is the division of knowledge into those categories, with their second-order divisions into the narrow but deep disciplines of modernity. The second condition is that we think that there’s something to gain by this reconnect—that knowledge needs new forms of guesswork now. That thought—that we have a historically-specific opportunity for reorganizing and advancing knowledge—is also central to the The Re:Enlightenment Project's effort to explain and transform our Enlightenment inheritance. These lectures are not an effort to study Re:Enlightenment but to enact it.

Professor Clifford Siskin - 5 March 2013 - When System Met History: The Tectonics of the Modern Disciplines