Inside Knowledge: (Un)doing Ways of Knowing in the Humanities is a collection of original essays proposing a fresh examination of epistemological questions relevant to scholars in any discipline of the humanities. Is objective knowledge still a viable ideal? Can art produce or express knowledge of any kind? Is the body a promising medium for a knowledge less abstract or logocentric than the kind Western culture has favoured so far? How are epistemological regimes maintained with the use of established linguistic tropes? Is knowledge to be resisted or employed as a tool of resistance? Distinguished as well as young, emerging scholars from disciplines such as philosophy, comparative literature, musicology and art theory discuss concrete case studies in which these questions arise. The essays share a commitment to interdisciplinary approaches and the close analysis of cultural objects, and refuse to take for granted the conventional methodologies that often guide research projects in their respective fields. The Inside Knowledge volume stages encounters between different ways of knowing, which contribute to an interdiciplinary understanding of the concept of knowledge and of epistemological questions in the humanities.
About the Author: Carolyn Birdsall is a PhD candidate at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, University of Amsterdam. She has published various articles on sound technology, film sound and popular culture, and is co-editor of the anthology Sonic Mediations: Body, Sound, Technology (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2008). Maria Boletsi is a PhD candidate at the Comparative Literature department and the Institute for Cultural Disciplines, Leiden University. She has published articles on C. P. Cavafy and J. M. Coetzee, Jamaica Kincaid, literary speech acts and migratory objects in the Balkans, in journals such as Comparative Literature Studies, Arcadia and Thamyris/Intersecting. Itay Sapir holds a PhD in Art History from the University of Amsterdam and the EHESS in Paris, on the Aesthetics and Epistemology of Roman Tenebrist Painting, 1595-1610. From Spring 2009, Sapir is a post-doctoral fellow at the KHI in Florence, working on the Port Scenes of Claude Lorrain. Pieter Verstraete holds a PhD in Theatre Studies from the University of Amsterdam. He has published articles on theatre, music theatre, opera, installation art and interactive dance in De Scene, Urbanmag, E-View, Etcetera, De Theatermaker, and in books, such as Performing the Matrix (Epodium) and Sonic Mediations (CSP).