BiblioVault - Books about Science and the humanities

Biogea

Michel Serres

University of Minnesota Press, 2012

Biogea is a mixture of poetry, philosophy, science, and biography exemplary of the style that has made Michel Serres one of the most extraordinary thinkers of his age. His philosophical and poetic inquiry sings in praise of earth and life, what he names singularly as Biogea. In these times when species are disappearing, when catastrophic events such as earthquakes and tsunamis impale the earth, Serres wonders if anyone “worries about the death pangs of the rivers.” And for Serres, one can ask the same question of philosophy as the humanities increasingly find themselves in need of defenders. Today, all living organisms discover themselves part of this Biogea. “Today we have other neighbors, constituents of the Biogea: the sea, my lover; our mother, the Earth, becomes our daughter; this beautiful breeze which inspires the spirit, a spiritual mistress; our light friends, the fresh and flowing waters.”

[more]

Blow Up the Humanities

Toby Miller

Temple University Press, 2012

A short, sharp, and provocative book, Blow Up the Humanities has esteemed scholar Toby Miller declaring that there are two humanities in the United States. One is the venerable, powerful humanities of private universities; the other is the humanities of state schools, which focus mainly on job prospects. There is a class division between the two—both in terms of faculty research and student background—and it must end.

Miller critically lays waste to the system. He examines scholarly publishing as well as media and cultural studies to show how to restructure the humanities by studying popular cultural phenomena, like video games. Miller ultimately insists that these two humanities must merge in order to survive and succeed in producing an aware and concerned citizenry.

[more]

From Galileo to Gell-Mann

The Wonder that Inspired the Greatest Scientists of All Time: In Their Own Words

Marco Bersanelli

Templeton Press, 2009

From time to time, the diligent science student huddled over dense volumes of research findings and highly technical data will stumble upon a truly rare treasure: the author’s answer to the question of, “Why?” Why did the authors of these volumes commit themselves so ardently to life in the laboratory? What was it that motivated them to keep their eye to microscope for years on end? Why did the world’s greatest scientists devote their lives to research—an endeavor where failure is the exponentially more likely outcome than success? In their new anthology, From Galileo to Gell-Mann, Marco Bersanelli and Mario Gargantini have gathered the answers to these fascinating questions from over one hundred of the brightest scientific minds from our past and our present. It is a goldmine of insight that previously could only to be found hidden deep within thousands of scattershot pages of footnotes from out-of-print journals, rare books, and unpublished papers. Throughout the work, Bersanelli and Gargantini also offer insightful commentary and discussion on the readings. Among the most remarkable similarities that emerge when one considers together these writings from the likes of Albert Einstein, Gregor Mendel, Marie Curie, and others, is the sense of wonder and outright awe at what the study of the natural world can reveal. From Galileo to Gell-Mann makes it clear that science and all parallel attempts to understand our human existence—including fields like philosophy to theology—are viewed as nothing less than grand adventures to those that are probing the limits of what we know.

[more]

The Future without a Past

The Humanities in a Technological Society

John Paul Russo

University of Missouri Press, 2005

In The Future without a Past, John Paul Russo goes beyond currently given reasons for the decline of the humanities and searches out its root causes in the technologization of everyday life. His main premise is that we are undergoing a transformation at the hands of technological imperatives such as rationalization, universalism, monism, and autonomy. The relation between ourselves and nature has altered to such a degree that we no longer live in a natural environment but in a technological one. According to Russo, technological values have actually eroded human values instead of being “humanized” by them.

What are the implications of this shift for the humanities, traditionally seen as safeguards of the human? Russo addresses this question by situating the decline of the humanities within the larger social and historical panorama. He explores how technological values have infiltrated the humanities to the point of weakening their instruction and undermining their force; at the same time, he shows how the humanities have confronted these trends and can continue to do so. Russo believes that if we understand how technology “works” and the nature of its powers, we will then know in which realms it must be accepted and where it should be resisted.

Russo outlines the components of the technological system and examines their impact on the educational system. He also discusses the loss of historical memory, including the so-called loss of the self and the transformation of the library. He studies the parallels between technological and literary values in criticism and theory, concluding with an analysis of the fiction of Don DeLillo, one of the most prominent contemporary novelists. DeLillo’s exploration of technology in American life, matched by a powerful critique of it from a broadly humanistic and religious perspective, serves to summarize the themes of the book as a whole.

The Future without a Past will appeal to scholars and students of literary studies, intellectual and cultural history, philosophy, ethics, media studies, and American studies, as well as to general readers who are seeking deeper insights into today’s cultural debates.

[more]

The Humanities in the Age of Technology

Ciriaco Morón Arroyo

Catholic University of America Press, 2002

Students of the humanities confront two fundamental questions: How valid and rigorous is the type of knowledge attained in these disciplines? And what good is it? In The Humanities in the Age of Technology, Ciriaco Morón Arroyo offers a systematic inquiry into these questions and outlines the ongoing crisis of the humanities.

[more]

The Quill and the Scalpel

Nabokov's Art and the Worlds of Science

Stephen H. Blackwell

The Ohio State University Press, 2009

Most famous as a literary artist, Vladimir Nabokov was also a professional biologist and a lifelong student of science. By exploring the refractions of physics, psychology, and biology within his art and thought, The Quill and the Scalpel: Nabokov’s Art and the Worlds of Science,by Stephen H. Blackwell, demonstrates how aesthetic sensibilities contributed to Nabokov’s scientific work, and how his scientific passions shape, inform, and permeate his fictions.

Nabokov’s attention to holistic study and inductive empirical work gradually reinforced his underlying suspicion of mechanistic explanations of nature. He perceived chilling parallels between the overconfidence of scientific progress and the dogmatic certainty of the Soviet regime. His scientific work and his artistic transfigurations of science underscore the limitations of human knowledge as a defining element of life. In provocative novels like Lolita,Pale Fire,The Gift,Ada, and others, Nabokov advances a surprisingly modest epistemology, urging skepticism toward all portrayals of nature, artistic and scientific. Simultaneously, he challenges his readers to recognize in the arts a vital branch of human discovery, one that both complements and informs traditional scientific research.

[more]

Rock | Water | Life

Ecology and Humanities for a Decolonial South Africa

Lesley Green

Duke University Press, 2020

In Rock | Water | Life Lesley Green examines the interwoven realities of inequality, racism, colonialism, and environmental destruction in South Africa, calling for environmental research and governance to transition to an ecopolitical approach that could address South Africa's history of racial oppression and environmental exploitation. Green analyzes conflicting accounts of nature in environmental sciences that claim neutrality amid ongoing struggles for land restitution and environmental justice. Offering in-depth studies of environmental conflict in contemporary South Africa, Green addresses the history of contested water access in Cape Town; struggles over natural gas fracking in the Karoo; debates about decolonizing science; the potential for a politics of soil in the call for land restitution; urban baboon management; and the consequences of sending sewage to urban oceans.

[more]

Science and the Creative Imagination in Latin America

Edited by Evelyn Fishburn and Eduardo L. Ortiz

University of London Press, 2004

This book considers the relationship between the humanities and the sciences in a Latin American context. The geographical emphasis is important, given the prominent role of science in the formation of the region's nation-states and its strong presence in Latin American cultural output. Most of the chapters focus on fictional narratives and scientific discourses. Questions of consent, resistance, and ideology in both fields are considered. The historical study of interplay between science and the novel helps identify what people were expected to believe at a given time, and reveals how these beliefs were sustained. This book provides insight into the connection between individual self-understanding and the surrounding world of science, within the broader question of the place of science in Latin American culture.
Chapters include: Darwin in South America: Geology, Imagination and Encounter Walking Backward to the Future: Time, Travel and Race Natural Parts and Unnatural Others: A reflection on Patrimony at the Turn of the 19th Century On the Transition from Realism to the Fantastic in the Argentina of the 1870s: Holmberg and the Six of Cordoba Literature and Science in Martinez Estrada's Work The Nature Effect in Latin American Science Publications: The Case of the Journal Redes Two Scientific Traditions in Martin Fierro Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in Contemporary Spanish American Fiction Constructing Postcoloniality: Scientific Enquiries in Cien Anos de Soledad Holograms and Simulacra: Bioy Casares, Subiela, Piglia The Desert Poetics of Mario Montalbetti: Writing, Knowledge, Topologies

[more]

Thinking with Sound

A New Program in the Sciences and Humanities around 1900

Viktoria Tkaczyk

University of Chicago Press, 2023

Thinking with Sound traces the formation of auditory knowledge in the sciences and humanities in the decades around 1900.

When the outside world is silent, all sorts of sounds often come to mind: inner voices, snippets of past conversations, imaginary debates, beloved and unloved melodies. What should we make of such sonic companions? Thinking with Sound investigates a period when these and other newly perceived aural phenomena prompted a far-reaching debate. Through case studies from Paris, Vienna, and Berlin, Viktoria Tkaczyk shows that the identification of the auditory cortex in late nineteenth-century neuroanatomy affected numerous academic disciplines across the sciences and humanities. “Thinking with sound” allowed scholars and scientists to bridge the gaps between theoretical and practical knowledge, and between academia and the social, aesthetic, and industrial domains. As new recording technologies prompted new scientific questions, new auditory knowledge found application in industry and the broad aesthetic realm. Through these conjunctions, Thinking with Sound offers a deeper understanding of today’s second “acoustic turn” in science and scholarship.

[more]