Futurepol seeks to recruit a postdoctoral researcher on a two year contract starting on January 1st 2013
Jenny Andersson received an ERC Starting-Grant to lead a 5 year research project on the history of knowledge production and forms of governance devoted to the long term. The Futurepol project started in January 2012 and brings together a research team dedicated to the research project. More information on the project can be found here.
The future offers a particular challenge for the governance of contemporary societies. What is the future, and can it be steered and controlled? Different societies over time and space have answered this question very differently, ranging from the oracles of Antiquity to the foresight processes of the European Union.
A characteristic of modern societies is their belief in the knowability and governability of the future in their faith that the future can be known and controlled. We need to understand how contemporary societies attempt to know and govern the future, and how contemporary forms of future governance reflect claims of predictability and control. How European societies create futures? How and why do ideas of the future emerge at a certain moment? How does the future becomes a scientific and political object? These questions will give us new knowledge of how societies in different contexts over time and space deal with conflicting future visions.
Next seminar: 27 November 2012. Please find more information on Sciences-po calendar here.