Translated by Juliana M Pistorius
CP Snow’s celebrated Rede Lecture, delivered in Cambridge on 7 May 1959 and published as The two cultures and the scientific revolution, offers a reflection on the rift between the humanistic and the exact sciences. In his address, Snow, a British physicist and novelist, calls for greater connectivity between scientific disciplines and academic cultures, observing that scholarly disciplines are growing further apart. Even then, 65 years ago, the academy was starting to fragment into specialised research institutes, thus making conversation between different disciplines increasingly difficult. The connectivity between disciplines which Snow advocated would later become known as “the third culture”, after the eponymous book by American author John Brockman (1991). Today, CP Snow’s plea for “the third culture” is even more pressing than at the end of the 1950s.
In an essay on scientific dialogue, Caroline Pauwels, late vice chancellor of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, writes about “enemy typification” and the divergent, even incompatible, interests of different faculties and research groups. “First we have to learn to know and understand each other,” she writes. “Only then will we have space to proceed and to work together at a more structural level. In this way, distrust and misunderstanding disappear; thus, the chasm gets filled. There are no magic potions. But I do see several small, in themselves perhaps unremarkable measures and initiatives, which have the potential to initiate a positive spiral.”
A few principles underpin the transdisciplinary project that sets out to “cross the divide” (as Caroline Pauwels puts it). American philosopher Martha Nussbaum’s widely translated essay Not for profit: Why democracy needs the humanities (2010) makes a case for more human sciences. Not only researchers, but also students and civil role players – regardless of field – benefit from engagement with “critical citizenship” and artes liberales. University education based on innovative and excellent research, Nussbaum argues, can teach young people Socratic values: “Socratic thought is extremely important in every democracy, but especially in societies that grapple with the presence of persons from diverse ethnic origins, castes or religions. The idea that everyone takes responsibility for their own views, and exchanges their thoughts with others in a spirit of mutual respect for reason, is essential for the peaceful resolution of disagreements.” To avoid the polarisation of opinion, to unmask nationalist-populist discourse, to resist one-dimensional, liberal growth principles, and hence to stimulate Socratic thought, we must dare to ponder, also in universities and research institutes, the implementation of liberal arts. I encourage all fellow researchers and university lecturers to engage with the chapter on “Socratic pedagogy” in Nussbaum’s book.
Today, the human and social sciences are under enormous pressure. The humanities especially are faced with the challenge of “proving” their academic legitimacy in relation to the exact sciences. The lion’s share of academic resources, including research support, funding, and personnel allocations, end up being channelled into the exact sciences, often at the expense of the humanities. Universities themselves do not always appear to believe in the validity or urgency of humanistic research.
Rabindranath Tagore, the Indian laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature, emphasises that “independent thought is of crucial importance to prevent the world from rushing headlong towards destruction”. Nussbaum argues that “only a resilient and critically enabled society will possibly be able to bring a halt to this ominous trend”. It will offer a Socratic antidote against the merely quantifiable or measurable, against teleological thought, and a one-dimensional, growth-oriented attitude towards academic thought. Nonetheless, the humanities continue to struggle within a predominantly neoliberal market economy and utilitarian approach to university education.
The Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (Stias), like its sister institutes in the US, in the UK and on the European continent, fosters transdisciplinary conversations in which all fields emerge as equals, even if these different domains enjoy varying degrees of financial and social prestige. The research fellowships hosted at the internationally renowned Wallenberg Research Centre not only provide an opportunity to meet junior and senior colleagues from diverse disciplines and continents, but also facilitate conversation and allow for pioneering research to be shared across scientific paradigms and discourses. It is a place that stimulates innovative thought – bearing in mind the adage that within those failures characteristic of research, lie the seeds of new discoveries – and which justly professes the slogan, “Creative space for the mind”.
Scientific research is enriched through contact with authors and artists, and with literature and other art forms. For this reason, Stias’s policy of appointing writers and artists in residence is of crucial importance. Dialogue between authors and researchers is both stimulating and rewarding. I celebrate the fact that Stias will host a Nobel in Africa conference on literature in 2025.
My Stias experience from 15 January till 14 June 2024 has conclusively convinced me that “a positive spiral”, as delineated by Pauwels, does exist. Stias answers a need for more transdisciplinary academic dialogue. The research and writing I have been able to complete during my time at Stias advances new insights into literary history and identity; it will be published in the book Twee overzijden: Kronieken en tweespraken (Far and near shores: Chronicles and dialogues).
In Not for profit, Nussbaum herself sounds optimistic. I share the foundations of her vision.
Outside the US, many countries where higher education does not possess a liberal arts component strive towards establishing something similar, because they recognise that such teaching may play an important role in formulating a public response to the problems of pluralism, anxiety and suspicion that confront their societies.
During my research stay at Stias, I realised again, more than ever before, that the way in which we communicate innovative research and translate it into our academic teaching, contributes fundamentally to our capacity to shape today’s students and researchers into “active, curious, critical and respectful democratic citizens” (Nussbaum, following American pedagogue John Dewey). It is with this valuable democratic insight, in which my residence at Stias and the many inspiring conversations with co-fellows played a crucial part, that I return to my research and teaching mandate at Ghent University. Since the 2021-2022 academic year in Ghent, we have run a series of transdisciplinary debates among researchers, postdocs and professors in different faculties. This institutional programme, titled Universitas, is designed to facilitate conversations and thematic discussions on social and scientific topics from different scholarly angles. My experience at Stias reaffirmed how crucial such dialogues between scientific domains are for constructing and consolidating a robust and multi-perspectival intellectual environment.