On Wednesday 7 September 2022 we celebrated the start of a new academic year with an event themed "Practices of Interdisciplinarity". 

Each year, NIAS welcomes a group of about 50 fellows made up of artists, writers, journalists and scholars. This year we asked them how they apply Interdisciplinarity in their work, and in their practice. The ceremony has insights from KNAW President Marileen Dogterom, NIAS Director Jan Willem Duyvendak and contributions from collaborators and partners. 

When re-imagining our food system, which kinds of knowledge have we been overlooking? What have we disregarded, dismissed, muted? The answer is: a lot - at least according to Food Sociologist Anna Kooi. 

During our first NIAS Talk of this semester 'Harvesting Care: Reflections on Sustainable Farming' current fellow Kate Brown (MIT) came together with a panel of speakers including Anna Kooi, Esther Veen and Ruben Jacobs to collectively explore the possibilities of self-provisioning in cities. Among the many interesting insights and sound bytes captured during the event was the remark by Kate that "We think of plants as apolitical, these cute little things, but in fact they can be quite political". 

The empowering essay shared by Anna Kooi can be read in its entirety here published in the SPUI25 Magazine. The full contributions of Kate and the other panelists can be seen online below. 

Art museums such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam once showed houseplants as part of their exhibitions, a practice that has since disappeared. Because the plants have received little attention from art historians or critics, Meijer published “The Plant Collection” in 2019, a book about her research into the plants of the Stedelijk Museum. As an artist-in-residence at the NIAS, Meijer will expand her research to the MoMA, where plants were on display in the exhibition spaces from 1937 to 1997.

On Monday October 3rd at 20:00h NIAS Director Jan Willem Duyvendak and journalist Menno Hurenkamp are joined by a panel of speakers including current NIAS Journalist-in-Residence Mark Lievisse Adriaanse, Evelien Tonkens and Marcel Ham, to present their most recent publication 'De macht der gewoonte. Populisme in de polder' at SPUI25.

Politicians like to talk about the common man and people who have to act 'normal' or else. The habitual then becomes a straitjacket, an attempt to restore a lost past, a way of lecturing others. In this book, sociologists Hurenkamp and Duyvendak question the habit of glorifying the ordinary. But they also look at attempts to dismantle the ordinary, which surprisingly come from both the far right and the radical left.

*This programme is in Dutch.

The NIAS newsletter focuses on forthcoming events and activities at NIAS and is published 4-5 times each semester.

If you have news to share with the NIAS Community, any comments, or questions about the content of the newsletter, please contact editor Gerard Coen at gerard.coen@nias.knaw.nl or Communications Officer Kahliya Ronde at communication@nias.knaw.nl