Links to Other Conversations and Articles
bcohen | July 17, 2006This is but a link to an interesting summary article about the topic of scientists (physicists) in film. It's by Sidney Perkowitz, who teaches at Emory, and who I've seen speak at the meetings of and know has long been involved with the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts (SLSA) -- which I call Salsa, but not sure if anyone else does, and which was long called just the Society for Literature and Science (SLS) until a name change a few years ago.
Salsa has a highly respected journal, too, Configurations, which is often fairly theoretically inclined and generally tip top. In fact,…
worldsfair | July 15, 2006Quick and fast today.
Pavlov's Brother by Andy Borowitz
Here's a great piece from the New Yorker - I hear it's a pretty good place to present your work.
Conversations with my mother which suggest she may secretly be a primatologist by Kevin Zeidler
When John referred me to Yankee Pot Roast, I essentially realized how many other great sites existed where literary humour is the game that is played. Anyway, YPR is also good for many hours of procastination.
Electron Band Structure In Germanium, My Ass by Lucas Kovar
Ah yes, science is tough. I believe this was a classic in graduate student…
worldsfair | July 9, 2006This time around, we have a poem, something about lego, a great piece by the ever interesting Kurt Vonnegut, and a conversation with an academic that sort of defies categorization . Not ranked in that order, in any particular order really. Just good for a few minutes of your life of science.
The poem we'll start with is by Tao Lin, and is the sort of poetry I can easily enjoy - a great piece with a subtle sustainability theme. Plus it's also good for a chuckle. Originally presented at the always marvelous monkeybicycle, Tao recently allowed me to reprint it at terry.ubc.ca. Click here to…
worldsfair | July 5, 2006After Mr. Gore visited our campus a month or so ago, one of the students who is working with me on the terry.ubc.ca project wrote an interesting piece comparing his talk (of which his movie An Inconvenient Truth is based on) to a Boyz II Men concert she went to the same week. As the editor involved, I thought it was an interesting way to frame a discussion on the man of the hour, and creative to the point of definitely being worthy of highlighting. Enjoy:
POLITICIANS VERSUS POP STARS: THE END OF THE ROAD WITH AL GORE AND BOYZ II MENBy Sarah Burch
There's recently been plenty of fodder for…
worldsfair | June 29, 2006
A few days ago, Ben put up an interesting article about Natalie Jeremijenko, regarding artistry as it relates to various scientific nuances - an essay that showed one of many many cracks in the "Two Culture" ideals that sprang from C.P. Snow's head. It got me thinking a bit, in that it occurred to me that a place such as scienceblogs.com mostly represents a perhaps more subtle take of the opposite notion: of "the scientist as mad artist." I mean, blogging in itself is a kind of creative outlet, with opinions and commentary that run a wide spectrum of tone and subject matter.
Anyway, we…
bcohen | June 27, 2006Janet, as seems to be the norm, has another interesting thread going on at Adventures in Science and Ethics, about searching for biological bases for homosexuality. I did an interview for The Believer recently with a historian and philosopher of sexuality, Arnold Davidson, who's at the University of Chicago (and the University of Pisa too, actually). The interview hits on the subject at hand by putting questions about science and sexuality into historical context. It's an interesting piece, I think. Go, go. Go check it out. Look at that, twice linked in a mere three lines.
And as for…
bcohen | June 23, 2006If ever there was an art-science piece on the web, this would be it: environmental angle, artistic production, scientific context, you get it all. This is, courtesy of our friend Cletus, a piece at Salon about "Activist, environmentalist and former rock promoter" Natalie Jeremijenko.
Go here first, to get into the site, but then pop back to this blog post, and then go here for the article.
Excerpts and comments to come, later on...
...but would include:
1. Why "mad scientist"? Are we still doing that stereotype?
2. What's it take to provide a new perception of something, beyond the lab (…