|
MEETINGS FOR 2004-05
Science
in Human Culture Reading Group
The program on Science in Human Culture sponsors an interdisciplinary
faculty reading group that meets several times a year to discuss
current or recent scholarship in the history and philosophy of science
and related fields. Current members of the group come from such
disparate fields as biology, philosophy, history, art history, anthropology,
film studies, sociology, and english literature. The goal of the
group is to foster cross-disciplinary dialogue and exchange among
Northwestern faculty who share research interests in the history
and philosophy of science. The group meets once to decide on the
books to be read for the academic year, and then once a quarter
after that in a congenial, informal setting to discuss the chosen
texts.
During the academic year 2004-2005, we will be reading the following
books:
Fall
Quarter
Steven
Shapin, A Social History of Truth
In
the last few months questions of truth and evidence have been
at the center of highly dramatic political events. From Colin
Powell’s speech at the U.N. to the Swift Boat Veterans for
Truth, from George W. Bush’s vanished military record to
the forged documents presented on CBS’s 60 Minutes,
from Tony Blair’s sacrosanct “conviction” of the
righteousness of his decisions to Al Franken’s best-seller Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, truth and evidence,
facts and objectivity, experts and witnesses, lies and forgeries,
have all been invoked ad nauseam on TV and in newspapers.
In the eyes of many readers and viewers, these notions have been
entirely stripped of any epistemological value and are now reduced
to simple political tools. For others politics offers, on the
contrary, the conditions of possibility for the production of
truth. In this context we thought it would be relevant and appropriate
to read for this quarter Steven Shapin’s A Social History
of Truth.
December
3, 12:00 noon, Seminar room, Sociology Department (1808 Chicago
Ave)
Winter
Quarter
Michel
Foucault, Discipline and Punish
When
we met last quarter, a consensus was reached that our decision
to read a canonical text had been a good one and that for the
winter quarter we ought to try again to pick a text central to
the field. Foucault's Discipline and Punish struck several
of those who were filtering out of our meeting in December as
a viable candidate. Discipline and Punish succinctly encapsulates
Foucault's claims about the interdependence of power and knowledge,
and is of especial interest to scholars of techniques of the state
and of methods of governmentality, as well as to historians of
the modern self. Since Foucault's work, such concerns have animated
the work of many scholars of science and technology studies and
historians of science and technology. Like Shapin's book, which
we read last quarter, we hope that reading Discipline and Punish
will not only spark discussion about the methods and choices of
its author, but more importantly will provoke reflection about
the state of the lessons that the field has learned from Foucault's
work.
March
11, from 11:30 to 1:30 in Kresge, Room 2-425 (the African American
Studies Conference Room).
For more information on the reading group contact either
Pauline Kusiak at p-kusiak@northwestern.edu,
Patrick
Singy, p-singy@northwestern.edu,
or
Barbara Phelan at b-phelan2@northwestern.edu
|
