REDES

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Our Charter

Participants to the REDES Project subscribe to the following views:

1. The purpose of a university education lies first and foremost in the training of critical abilities which are fostered through the production of new knowledge. The members of REDES are of the opinion that traditional ways of handling knowledge in Humanities departments are not conducive toward such aims, but remain largely confined to the dissemination of existing knowledge. REDES strongly favors the production of new knowledge by students in the course of the curriculum.

2. Even where some allowance is made that students gather research experience, this usually comes at the very end of the study period. We are of the opinion that this is not only far too late, it is also counter-productive, in that it often produces frustration (because students are ill-prepared) rather than interest, confidence and enthusiasm. REDES attaches great value to instruction into modes of knowledge-production from the very beginning of the university training.

3. Members of REDES are dedicated to the insight that such aims can only be achieved through ACTIVE participation in the research process of all concerned, including beginning students.

4. Methodological training is underdeveloped in the Humanities; this is paradoxical, because the level of complexity in culture is many times higher than that in natural phenomena. Nevertheless, it is students of the natural sciences who are initiated in methodological matters at a deeper level. We are of the opinion that this situation should be redressed; we therefore attach great importance to serious education in methodology.

5. The REDES project puts emphasis on empirical methods of investigation; we believe that there is a too one-sided emphasis on hermeneutic-interpretative and subjectivist methods in Humanities. Such methods may have merits, but should be complemented by more scientific investigations of culture. To develop and see through such empirical work we consider of the utmost importance.

6. REDES' members see research not as an individual enterprise, but as a form of team work that is carried out by groups of people who actively communicate about their plans and progress.

7. Such groups do not stop at national borders, but should be essentially transnational and cross-cultural forms of cooperation. REDES wishes to foster such international cooperation by bringing together scholars and students from six different cultures: Brazil, Canada, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands and Ukraine. REDES is fundamentally open to new groups joining.

8. REDES' emphasis on objectivity, on methodology, and on empirical ways of investigation is in no way a depreciation of culture, high or low. On the contrary, members of REDES are deeply respectful of cultural artifacts, of cultural traditions and of cultural preferences. Research is carried out in the spirit of this respect for culture.

9. REDES' members actively engage with cultural products and propagate the value that cultural products bring to individuals’ lives and to society as a whole.

• Foregrounding

• Feelings in literary response

• Literature and
Cultural Studies

• Humor

• Knowledge Management