Extended deadline to March 2- Call for Proposals: Two Worlds Embraced by a Third: The Humanist and the Natural Sciences

Attempts at exploring the sciences from a humanist’s viewpoint is not new, and was probably what instigated the writing of C.P. Snow’s famed Two Cultures. It has not always been the case that the sciences are thoroughly separated from the humanities, as its earlier incarnation as natural philosophy obviously suggests. Now, science, as we know it, is separated from its histories and philosophies that exist as academic disciplines in separate departments. If we were to venture further back in time to the Medieval and Renaissance period, we will encounter exploration of the sciences done simultaneously through mechanical and artistic experimentations, as many fascinating critiques and explorations into the work and life of Leonardo Da Vinci have indicated. When modern scientific knowledge and authority were abrogated by institutions and disseminated after receiving their stamps of approval, experimentation and discoveries were carried on as before, including beyond the hallowed walls of the academy.

At present, there is growing interest in scientific visualization and imaging by new media artists for the purpose of re-presentation and re-interpretation of scientific data and worldview within a broader cultural context, as well as through the lens of critical aesthetics. At the same time, the relationship between biological sciences (especially neurosciences) in connection to theories of embodiment and affectivity in literature, philosophy, art history, media studies and communication sciences, have been explored through various medium from art installation, to the moving image, to experimental literature (both print and electronic). In more experimental forms of literary texts, questions of computational and genetic algorithms that structure the production of the texts have also been explored through creative work and literary analysis, as well as by way of explorations into the concept of textual and autonomous experimentation.

However, what is lacking, at this juncture, are broader humanistic encounters with the physical sciences and mathematical sciences in literature beyond the works of A.N. Whitehead, David Bohm, Roland Omnès, Arkady Plotnisky, Karen Barad, and Brian Rotman. among others; or through more popular accounts of the more ‘exotic’ elements of these fields, whether due to the limitations of one’s training or exposure. One can conceive this as much as a problem of language as of translating between linguistics jargons and background knowledge. Nevertheless, I would like to draw loosely on Peter Galison’s account of the trading zone, whereby it is possible for those working within different epistemic cultures and politics to communicate across that the ontological divide despite not fully comprehending each others' 'glossary of terms,' and 'in-house' jargons, to call upon humanist scholars with interests in both the biological and physical sciences, to propose papers, creative works, performances, and other forms of presentations for a panel or a track of panels in SLSA 2012. It is hope that we could create panels that will also deal specifically with the theme of the ‘non-human.’



Some suggested areas of interrogation include:



-speculative science/speculative scientific ontology

-forms of experimentations/worlds

-issues of scientific ‘rigor’ and interdisciplinarity

-theoretical sciences

- foundational theories of science/critical theory

-comparative study of physical and biological sciences in the humanities

-fictions of science

-history of science (scientific debates, scientific libraries, societies, publications, epistemic controversies)

- philosophy of science and literary criticism

- the science and arts of the wunderkammer

- science fiction versus literary science

- experimenting with science outside the academy

- comparative literature and comparative science

- archives of comparative science         



Send proposals of not more than 300 words to clarissa.lee@duke.edu  by 2nd Mar, 2012.
Conference site: http://www.litsciarts.org/slsa12/cfp.htm