Beata Stawarska, Professor of Philosophy and Director of Graduate Studies, received a 2017-18 residential fellowship at the Institute of Advanced Studies, Nantes, France.

Stawarska will be working on a research project titled:

The Canon and the Critique: One Hundred Years of the Course in General Linguistics

Project description:
Thanks to its over one hundred-year-long legacy, the Cours de linguistique générale /Course in General Linguistics (1916) attributed to Ferdinand de Saussure acquired the status of an indispensable ‘Great Book’ in contemporary scholarship in the humanities. This canonical text laid out an innovative research program in modern linguistics and it led to the development of a structuralist method in other human sciences, and it therefore occupies an important role in contemporary academic scholarship and college-level pedagogy. While the Course is justifiably enshrined within the contemporary canon of ideas, recent research in Saussurean linguistics offers multiple venues for developing a critical perspective on this foundational text. This groundbreaking research conducted mainly in France has remained confined to specialised academic venues and not nearly as popular and widely accessible as the Course itself. Beata Stawarska therefore proposes to author the first critical companion to the Course in General Linguistics that would appeal to a wide, international and interdisciplinary audience in the humanities, and reflect the relevant European scholarship on the legacy and validity of the Course today. This study would examine the production, reception, and replication of the Course as an official statement of Saussure’s linguistics by examining the dominant social relations of power within European academic institutions and the role social norms play in enabling as well as constraining the establishment of true knowledge in scientific disciplines. It would therefore contribute to a better understanding of Saussure’s linguistics and its social and institutional context.

For additional information about IAS-Nantes, see:
https://www.iea-nantes.fr/en/