Preface:

Both democracy and expertise are valuable to thought and to human life—democracy for its capacity to take account of a wide range of perspectives and interests, and expertise for its capacity to provide effective solutions to problems we face. But democracy and expertise can collide. In sci-ence, for example, democracy can lead to individuals weigh-ing in on the dangers of vaccinations, against the expert judgment that vaccinations are a common health good. Conversely, claims of expertise can lead to the exclusion (purposeful or inadvertent) of typically marginalized per-spectives. The broadly democratic “history from below” movement of 20th century attempted to eliminate such exclusion by approaching historical events from the view-point of ordinary people. In this seminar, explored how democracy and expertise interact—productively and otherwise—in history and science. As democracy and exper-tise connect with the philosophical understandings of truth and objectivity, they are also intriguing to our understand-ing of literature, both fiction and non-fiction.