Any interest in the social sciences and humanities here?
Most spaces flying the flag of science are often unfortunately exclusive in their focus on STEM sciences. In order to combat such a monopoly and until such time as Tildes opens up groups for the social sciences and humanities, I'd like to open this place up to discussion around some of the disciplines which have always personally interested me more than, say, astronomy or biology. Is anyone else here interested in sociology, archaeology, anthropology, linguistics..? Has anyone pursued work in those fields? Any interesting perspectives to offer or news of recent breakthroughs in any of those areas? All discussion is welcome.
As for myself, I'm particularly interested in sociocultural anthropology and archaeology--in the latter case, specifically as relates to the Neolithic and Bronze Age Near East. I'll soon be pursuing a degree in anthropology with an archaeological orientation at the University of Buenos Aires and hope to be working in the field soon after the end of my studies. I'm also incidentally interested in sociology, philosophy, and literature studies, but don't have any plans at the moment to pursue academic study thereof. Any questions? Feel free to ask.
Personally, I love reading about those subjects, I'm just not able to contribute much. Askhistorians is one of the best communities on Reddit. It'd be great to see content like that here.
I'm interested in linguistics, I love reading about how different languages work and the different constructs they have and theories for how those came to be. I haven't actually sat down and formally studied anything though. If anyone has any books that would be suitable for someone who wants to learn some "proper" linguistics but isn't realistically going to become a linguist I'd love to here about them. If that seems incredibly vague I guess what I'm trying to get at is I don't want to read pop-sci books but don't see myself fully immersing myself in the field either.
I don't know if you are particularly interested in the differences between American and British English, but a book by Lynne Murphy The Prodigal Tongue: The love-hate relationship between American and British English was a good read.
There have already been articles posted here about:
history,
archaeology / archeology,
anthropology,
sociology,
language (but not "linguistics"),
general social science,
and even philosophy.
There's definitely an interest in these topics.
There has been a lot of history posts in ~misc, and it's where I've been posting to as well. Which group do you think history fits better into?
Wow, you're right - there are a lot of history posts in ~misc! I don't know how I missed that.
I've been treating history as a social science (which is how Wikipedia categorises it); ergo, it goes in ~science. That's where I put my history-related post.
But, as I've just seen, I'm definitely in the minority on that! Maybe I should be putting my history posts in ~misc from now on, for consistency's sake.
Maybe we should ask Deimos to create a ~socialscience or ~humanities group to clear up this confusion.
EDIT: I've just found out that Wikipedia also classes history as a humanity. This is very confusing.
There was a request for a "society" group some time ago and I think history would fit well there.
After all, the society is shaped by history and by not forgetting we can avoid to repeat the same mistakes.
Now in general I'd love Topics on sociology, psychology and other humanistic subject. Also think they would fit "society" as well.
I cannot help at my knowledge is not as an expert. I mostly read articles, researches and discussions with friends who are professional so I do have a better knowledge than average Joe, but not nearly the awareness of a person who studied it.
I'll happily read and comment tho :)
Because of my background, I decided, even if begrudgingly, to pursue a degre in System Analysis (it's like Comp Sci-lite in Brazil). A degree in History just wouldn't help me to get a stable job. I'm not even saying it's easier, just saying there is a bigger market.
Anyway, I always loved History classes during school. One topic that I always like to read is about immigration of Europe and Asian countries to Brazil. It's quite fascinating. For instance, we have more people of Lebanese descent than Lebanon itself! I also recently learned that we have a huge population of Roma people too, much I can't find lot of information about them.
Not what I went to school for (well I minored in it) but I'm deeply interested in history, especially the industrial revolution, the lead up, and the fallout. It's really amazing how fast all of that stuff happened, near ten thousand years of agriculture and civilization and Earth goes from being an agrarian backwater to a planet with spaceflight, nuclear weapons, supersonic transport, electronics, and so much else in like a century and a half. And the fact that it started on a continent that was basically at the fringes of civilization as recently as 500 years ago is super weird and interesting too.
I've got hobbyist-level interests in political economy, arts (particularly cinema, architecture, design and photography), history, philosophy, and all the other knowledge domains that don't fit neatly under the STEM awning. Would be happy to see some subheadings in these areas; ~misc is going to get too cluttered for usability in a hurry.
Yes, though my scope is broad and crosses standaard disciplinary boundaries: economics, political science, psychology, sociology, history (particularly Turchin's cliodynamics), geography.
I'm interested in the softer sciences and humanities, but I don't have the background to contribute much.