Seminar
Benoit Godin & the Idea of Innovation
The philosophy group of Wageningen University & Research is pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Benoît Godin will be visiting the Netherlands to share his expertise in the field of Innovation Studies. As a professor and researcher at INRS (Institut national de la recherche scientifique – Montreal, Canada), Godin is currently conducting a long-term research project on the intellectual history of innovation, from Antiquity to the present. Innovation Contested (Routledge, 2015) is one of the main outputs of this project. He has also recently published Models of Innovation (MIT, 2017), in which he rethinks and debunks the historical narratives of models developed by theorists of innovation.
Innovation Contested: The Idea of Innovation Over the Centuries (2015)
Today, innovation is spontaneously understood as technological innovation because of its contribution to economic "progress". Yet for 2.500 years, innovation had nothing to do with economics in a positive sense. Innovation was pejorative and political. It was a contested idea in philosophy, religion, politics and social affairs. Innovation only got de-contested in the last century. Innovation shifted from a vice to a virtue. Innovation became an instrument for achieving political and social goals. In this book, Benoît Godin lucidly examines the representations and meaning(s) of innovation over time, its diverse uses, and the contexts in which the concept emerged and changed. This history is organized around three periods or episteme: the prohibition episteme, the instrument episteme, and the value episteme.
Programme
Open to the public, no registration required
14:00 – 14:30 Coffee break
14:30 – 16:30 Workshop (C0406) [0.2 ECTS]
Book discussion on 'Innovation Contested' (2015)
Participants are expected to have read the book
Registration is required by October 24th*
Send first name, last name, current position, address, postal code, city, country, phone number, and email address to: inge.ruisch@wur.nl
16:30 – 17:30 Drinks
*Registration for this workshop is free of charge. However, if you have registered and do not show up at the workshop, you will be charged a no-show fee of €25