The Year of Science 2009 is a national, year-long event intended to engage the public in science and improve understanding of the process of science.
As part of that celebration, the Humainities Institute at the University of Connecticut has chosen a science-related theme for its annual "Day in the Humanities" celebration -- Imagining, performing, writing science. The "Day" will be held in the Alumni House on the University of Connecticut campus, with coffee beginning at 8:30; performances, presentations, and discussions through the day; and a reception at 6:15. A complimentary lunch will be provided. Call the Humanities Institute (860-486-4059) or e-mail (uchi@uconn.edu) to reserve a seat or for more information.
As part of that celebration, the Humainities Institute at the University of Connecticut has chosen a science-related theme for its annual "Day in the Humanities" celebration -- Imagining, performing, writing science. The "Day" will be held in the Alumni House on the University of Connecticut campus, with coffee beginning at 8:30; performances, presentations, and discussions through the day; and a reception at 6:15. A complimentary lunch will be provided. Call the Humanities Institute (860-486-4059) or e-mail (uchi@uconn.edu) to reserve a seat or for more information.
From the "Day in the Humanities" web site:
In contrast to the humanities, which express and shape both human experience and culture, science is often conceived as an objective, fact-finding enterprise transcending culture and its human creators. In the UCHI's fourth Day in the Humanities, Imagining, Performing, Writing Science, scholars will challenge this 'Two Cultures' point of view by exploring various discourses through which science is created, represented, and disseminated. Whatever their differences, scientific and humanistic modes of representation share the crucial common denominator of writing, and employ such 'literary' artifices as narrative, analogy, and metaphor. Though scientific and humanistic discourses may vary by discipline, the presentation of 'results' in each arena depends upon writing not only to shape the form of the results, but also to communicate them and thus to shape the public's response.
The Day will begin with a dramatic reading of Terry Johnson's Hysteria, an intellectual farce which offers a provocative imagining of Freud's last days. Punctuated by startling visits from Salvador Dali and the daughter of one of his earliest patients, Freud is forced to reconsider the projection of himself within the 'truth' of his early theories regarding presexual hysteria. Peter Gay (Sterling Professor Emeritus of History, Yale University) will then respond to the reading and initiate a discussion. Imagining, Performing, Writing Science will also feature a presentation by the hosts and producers of WNPR's award-winning Radio Lab, Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, and a faculty roundtable on 'Scientific Metaphor.' The Day will then conclude with a keynote address, 'Building Crashing Thinking,' by Peter Galison (Joseph Pellegrino University Professor, Harvard University), revealing how historically specific notions of the self have provided necessary backgrounds for scientific constructs which in turn have reshaped those originating notions of the self.
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