Studies on Culture, Technology and Education The Humanities Laboratory

The book explores the history, epistemic status and potential of the humanities laboratory. It shows that since the end of the 19th century, a laboratorial lineage has developed in the humanities. It proposes that the humanistic laboratory is a mimicry of the natural laboratory, which means not imitation but transgression. This book explores the epistemic status and potential of humanities laboratories. It investigates the history of such laboratories, while contributing to debates on designing contemporary forms of labs. The book traces the trend for laboratories in the humanities since the mid-nineteenth century, outlining a multitude of projects across diverse times and spaces. We are interested in what makes humanities laboratories different from their scientific relatives. Can a humanities lab and those investigating natural sciences even be considered as related? Or should the relationship between them be seen transversally, outside of the opposition between the humanities and the natural and formal sciences? We argue that the humanities laboratory should not be based on the idea of mimesis and imitate a scientific lab, but rather operate according to the principle of mimicry. Only in this way can the humanities fulfil their self-critical function.