This symposium brings together contributors to a newly burgeoning mode of work that sits at—and defies—the boundaries between scholarly research and creative art related to nature and the history of science. How does research on past scientific ideas and practices inform art? How do present-day scientific, historical, and experiential methods help us understand the relations between artistic and scientific practices of the past and open new relations in the present? Just how does work that bridges science, history, and art, or that merges scholarship and creative production, disrupt the traditional conventions of artistic and scholarly spaces? Conversely, what sorts of spaces can provide suitable homes for such work? Scholars, artists, and scholar-artists at all career levels at the UW-Madison will join invited external speakers to present their responses to these questions and engage in group reflection on how we might advance this work in all its forms.
For details see the website here.
Location: 984 Memorial Library (Special Collections)
1:30-3:15 pm: Interdisciplinary Spaces
Lynn Nyhart: Professor, History of Science, UW-Madison (Introduction)
Sarah Anne Carter: Curator and Director of Research, Chipstone Foundation (Milwaukee)
Carin Berkowitz: Director, Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry, Chemical Heritage Foundation (Philadelphia)
Ann Smart Martin: Professor, Art History and Director, Material Culture Program, UW-Madison (Moderator)
3:45-5:15 pm: Keynote Lecture: Making Art and Knowing Nature in Early Modern Europe: The Making and Knowing Project
Pamela H. Smith: Seth Low Professor of History and Director, Center for Science and Society, Columbia University
Introduction by Florence Hsia: Professor and Chair, Department of the History of Science, UW-Madison