Interdisziplinarity as a Form of Cooperation: The Debates Concerning the Epistemic State of Narratives as Exemplary Case (1970 - 1990)

• Applicant: Dr. Petra Boden
• Subject Area: German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature) ; History of Science
• Term: from 2019 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 431103346

Since the 1950s there is an increasing amount of interdisciplinary forms of research in the historically orientated humanities ("Geisteswissenschaften") in Western Germany, which not only cooperate sporadically, but establish themselves institutionally. This project explores the personal, institutional und epistemological configurations within these groups as well as between them, in order to find out to what extent the process and the results of the respective research are coined by this setting.The project is based on the hypothesis that these forms of cooperation have not only begun to reflect upon and to solve common, already existing problems, but also that these questions were raised and encouraged within and as a result of the interdisciplinary discussion in the first place. Doing so new core themes were created, the methodological, theoretical and institutional norms of their treatment were framed, and finally new key paradigms of this period were established. Thematically, the hypothesis will be verified by examining the example of interdisciplinary debates concerning the epistemic state of narratives as a scientific practice in the "Geisteswissenschaften", which have begun to emerge since 1970 and were understood as part of the formation of a general theory of narration. Following the modernization and scientification of the "Geisteswissenschaften" the legitimacy of this traditional practice was questioned as not scientific, thus, a separate theoretical reflection was required. Therefore, the project will focus on forms of cooperation, in which literary scholars, historians and philosophers have come together since the beginning of the 1970s to reflect the problems theoretically as well as to elaborate on them practically. Hereby, literary studies are focussed, for in the course of their re-orientation these disciplines have most of all profited by these debates. It is extremely remarkable that these scholars have met repeatedly in preceding or simultaneously existing forms of cooperation and were therefore highly familiar with their mutual ways of thinking. The new groups were very often composed of similar personal combinations. Therefore, the question can be raised, to what kind of results the existing interrelations and overlappings within and between these cooperations with regards to the process and effects of their work finally led. The end of the period investigated around 1990 is justified by reasons of the history of institutions and theories as well as science policies.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants