The World's Fair began last year with the goal of contributing to the on-line, public conversation about science. Scienceblogs.com is dedicated to that mission generally, so Dave and I figured we'd add in by talking about a few areas of common interest to us. Things like: visual art-science connections, science and the humanities (literary, visual, cinematic, theatrical, etc), satire and humor, writing on/about/for science (this dous double duty: as the subject of discussion while also doing it) - this, they say, is called science communication, and Dave seems to be particularly adept at experimenting with it. All of those, plus what I consider the wide range of topics under the umbrella of science and technology studies, my own academic field of study.
That wide range, to take the general sub-categories of the field, includes the history, sociology, philosophy, and politics of science and technology. Obviously, the list I'm giving is very broad. Some of them are about cultural representations *of* science and technology - the literary, visual, cinematic, theatrical, stuff. Some are about how scientists and engineers represent themselves and their work to the public. And some are about how the practices of science and engineering fit into various political, cultural, philosophical, environmental, and ethical settings.
You look at Dave's description (over there, on the left) and it says: "Director of the Advanced Molecular Biology Laboratory at the University of British Columbia - this is a just a fancier way of calling himself a science teacher." That's fair. You look at mine and it says, "He studies the place of Science & Technology in environmental history, policy, and ethics." That may be a little more obtuse. But the point is, we both look at the wide range of topics above (writing, satire, art, etc.) through those respective lenses. Oh god, the dreaded lens metaphor. Anyway.
The point is: in Year 2 of the blog, we'll be trying a few new things and ditching a few old things. The purpose of this post, after all that preamble, is to say this:
The first two primary new activities are these: one, the Author-meets-Bloggers series of which you've now seen two parts. The first one had Michael Egan talking about his new work on Barry Commoner, Science, and Environmentalism. The second one had Cyrus Mody talking about nanotechnology, ethics, public policy, and all that. More in this series are on the way, so stay tuned. Now, two, is that we'll be having a growing cadre of guest bloggers contributing posts to the site. These will begin this week. We do this to continue to achieve our initial purpose for the blog: to contribute to the on-line, public conversation about science. And we do this, as well, to bring an even more deliberate STS voice to the topics addressed, a voice a tad under-represented at Scienceblogs.
The first three guest bloggers are all STS scholars, working in various locations, but all dedicated to understanding more thoroughly the relationships between science, technology, and society. One is Mark Russell; another is Jody Roberts; a third is Wyatt Galusky. So keep reading the site. We'll give them further introduction in their initial posts, or maybe they'll do that with pithy by-lines.
A third primary activity for the blog will be a closer look at the projects that we ourselves play in. These, of course, relate to science and technology, but often with an air of unconvention to them - whether that has to do with trying to be amusing in the world of freelance writing (or book writing for that matter), to the nuts and bolts of designing and implementing interesting courses, or with, let's not forget, the usual assortment of odd things we tend to devote our time to (I'm thinking about Annals of Science and Pokemon inspiration, for example). Along this line, David will begin showcasing elements of a new course he's got in the works: an interesting class with two goals in mind - (1) to talk about "global issues" and (2) to do so in a way sensitive to both the student of the humanities and the student of the sciences. Crazy stuff actually, but certainly intriguing and a wonderful challenge to be sure.
O.K. I guess here we are then. Carry on.
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