Section Days 2009
When: November 4-6, 2009
Where: Veranstaltungszentrum Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Who: all members of the Research School interested in research discussions with the invited guest scientists and colleagues about research topics beyond disciplines
At the beginning of November 2009 the third Section Days of the Ruhr-University Research School will take place. They combine talks of invited guest scientists and fellows with workshops and poster presentations to support research discussions across disciplines. The Section Days are organised by teams of doctoral fellows from each section. They will be realised as three one-day international conferences with invited guest speakers and doctoral candidates from other universities.
Taking part in the Section Days supports the scientific exchange within your section and enables you to gain inside into up-to-date research discussions and neighboured research areas. You are invited to discuss state-of-the art research with our guest scientists and the other members of your section and reflect research results, problems and questions of your own research project in a broader scientific context.
First Day, November 4 (Wednesday):
Humanities and Social Sciences
Contact person: Agnieszka Komorowska
This year’s Humanities and Social Sciences Section Day is named – in reference to the works of Michel Foucault – ‘The Archaeology of Science and Knowledge’. The conference deals with the different stages of scientific approaches to knowledge – starting from the search for traces to the organisation of knowledge in archives to everyday practices and even to the loss of knowledge. We want to focus on questions concerning the processes and criteria of canonisation, the production of cultural memory and the modes of scientific and aesthetic presentation of knowledge. The Section Day will be opened by keynote speeches and will be continued in four thematic panels.
Panel 1
Traces of Knowledge
“The formation of knowledge as a cultural phenomenon is a complex process based upon different possible methods in which the builder of knowledge has to follow, interpret, arrange and re-arrange pieces of information. Traces are in this respect of huge importance as they are the guides to new insights into and correlations between facts and truths. Every discipline is having its own way of usage and meaning of traces, which are supposed to be presented and discussed exemplary in this panel.”
Panel 2
The Archive
“The second panel is discussing the role and impacts of the archive. The archive as an actual space is securing, managing – and restricting – knowledge and information. By that it is providing but also producing a community‘s cultural memory. Going further, the archive itself as e.g. a literary archive can be inscribed in texts and artefacts themselves. In this interdisciplinary panel we aspire to explore the various meanings and forms of archives of knowledge.”
Panel 3
Dealing with Science and Knowledge
“The third panel deals with the question of how knowledge is imparted. Given that the successful transfer of knowledge is crucial to its conservation, usage and development, the presentations will address the issue of transfering knowledge effectively in spite of communication obstacles just as cultural or disciplinary differences. We also emphasize the fact that communication not only serves as a means of copying existing information, but also changes, amends, defers, combines or produces data and thereby contributes to the (re-)formation of knowledge.”
Panel 4
Loss of Knowledge
“Why does certain knowledge disappear from the collective memory and is left to oblivion? What is suppressed from the canon and why? The process of canonisation is marked by a tension between the state of knowledge, which is to be saved and conserved, and new experiences and developments, which sometimes superpose and overwrite the previous understanding. The panel will discuss these processes in the context of the tension between loss and acquisition of knowledge.”
Second Day, November 5 (Thursday):
Life Sciences: The Art of Nature
Contact person: Mark Wehner
“This year we are going to dedicate the Life Science Section Day to ‘The Art of Nature’. This should give credit to the fact that one of the most powerful methods of exploring biological processes is imaging. During the last decade the use of fluorescent probes, especially GFP and its variants, became a standard technique to study biological processes in vitro and/or in vivo. While most techniques are restricted to a specific size range, it is possible to visualize anything from single molecules up to specific tissues usingmodern appliances. With this in mind, we want to focus on the visualization of in itself 'artistic' phenomena in nature from the perspectives of neurobiology, microbiology as well as biochemistry.”
Third Day, November 6 (Friday):
Natural Sciences and Engineering: Functional Materials
Contact person: Stefanie Lang
“If a material utilizes its native properties and functions to achieve intelligent action, it is, by definition, a so-called functional material (Wang & Kang, 1998).Probably you can immediately think of several examples from your own discipline that meet these criteria - but what do you know about functional materials in other research areas? This year's NSE section day is designed to explore the variety of functional materials our section has to offer. International guest speakers and doctoral fellows will provide you with an interesting insight into state of the art research on the RUB campus and beyond.”
Poster Prizes
Poster prizes will be awarded for the 3 best posters of each section (book vouchers: 1. Prize: 150,- €, 2. Prize: 100,- €, 3. Prize: 50,- €)
Requirements and Registration
If your participation should be acknowledged within the structured research training programme of the Research School you have to take part actively in the whole Section Day of your section according to the requirements.
In case you are interested in joining the Section Days without abstract and poster please also register.
You are welcome to participate in all section days which might be interesting for you and your own research project.
Please register until the end of the deadlines by the online Registration Form.