"Limits of Knowledge -- Knowledge of Limits. The Productiveness of Ignorance, Non-Knowledge and Agnotology in Anglophone Studies, Literature and Culture".
Auguscik A, Broders S (2022)
Publication Language: English
Publication Type: Journal article, Original article
Publication year: 2022
Journal
Book Volume: 2
Pages Range: 77-88
Journal Issue: 33
Open Access Link: https://doi.org/10.33675/ANGL/2022/2/9
Abstract
Political and sociological debates have postulated the ideal of a 'knowledge society', emphasizing competitive advantages associated with sharing, circulating, and capitalising scientific knowledge. An increase of knowledge, however, is inextricably linked to an increase of non-knowledge and uncertainty (see Schwering 2020, 3; Reydon n. pag.). Especially in times of crisis, of which COVID-19 and the climate crisis have been the most current examples, academics have produced vast amounts of "knowledge about our ignorance, about the compulsion to act and live in doubt" (Schwering 2020, 3).
Recent scholarship has addressed conceptualisations and representations of non-knowledge from the perspectives of various disciplines, such as the "Social Theories of Ignorance" proposed by Michael J. Smithson, or Cornel Zwierlein's 2016 study The Dark Side of Knowledge: Histories of Ignorance, 1400 to 1800. In Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance (2008), Robert Proctor and Londa Schiebinger have coined the term 'agnotology' to denote not merely "the study of ignorance", but also "the historicity and artifactuality of non-knowing and the non-known – and the potential fruitfulness of studying such things" (27). Despite the extensive research on ignorance accomplished in the natural and social sciences as well as in individual fields of the Humanities such as history and philosophy, little work has thoroughly examined how literary and cultural works explore the limits of knowledge. Without an adequate consideration of literary and cultural discourses on non-knowledge, however, both the scientific community and the public and medial debates about the role, impact, and limits of research are likely to undervalue how literary and cultural productions participate in producing narratives, metaphors, and rhetorical patterns recurring in these debates about the ethics of research as well as the potential of science to provide both adequate and feasible solutions to crisis situations.
The contributions from this section take a first step to remedy this particular gap in knowledge, by analysing the contribution literature and culture have made to the discourses used when talking about non-knowledge, as well as to the modes of treating areas of non-knowledge.
Authors with CRIS profile
Involved external institutions
Germany (DE)How to cite
APA:
Auguscik, A., & Broders, S. (2022). "Limits of Knowledge -- Knowledge of Limits. The Productiveness of Ignorance, Non-Knowledge and Agnotology in Anglophone Studies, Literature and Culture". Anglistik, 2(33), 77-88. https://dx.doi.org/10.33675/ANGL/2022/2/9
MLA:
Auguscik, Anna, and Simone Broders. ""Limits of Knowledge -- Knowledge of Limits. The Productiveness of Ignorance, Non-Knowledge and Agnotology in Anglophone Studies, Literature and Culture"." Anglistik 2.33 (2022): 77-88.
BibTeX: Download