ALA Panel Reminder:

Quantum Metaphors and Fractal Verse: Intersections in Contemporary American Poetry and Science

How are contemporary American poets utilizing science-based theories and ideas to create verse relevant to the concerns of the 21st century? Seeking abstracts for a panel that explores intersections between science and contemporary…[Read more]

Call for Papers

WORLDS and WORDS

29th Annual Interdisciplinary Conference in the Humanities

Sponsored by the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures

University of West Georgia, College of Arts and Humanities

Carrollton, Georgia

October 30-November 1, 2014

Deadline Extended until July 22nd

We welcome submissions from across…[Read more]

http://users.dakotacom.net/~glomc/NEH/HeavenTalkPT1.pptx

I thought some of you who have posted might like to see the power point I have been using to speak to groups about our film project. This is the older version, centered upon Galileo and Shakespeare but i think you will find it fun to view. I am thinking of adding chapter two–the plot thickens with the Shakespearean scholars vs. astronomers who…[Read more]

An April issue of New Scientist had an article on Shakespeare and his understanding of astronomy. It mentioned many of the points you make. Just an FYI.

http://www.newscientist.com/special/shakespeare

Yes, Nancy, my husband brought that article to my attention and that is the article that made me think it may be more useful to pose the issue of…[Read more]

An April issue of New Scientist had an article on Shakespeare and his understanding of astronomy. It mentioned many of the points  you make. Just an FYI.

http://www.newscientist.com/special/shakespeare

Yes, as I understand it, tension needs to build up to the climax, which may be a confrontation. This will provide the framework for a discussion of evidence. It sounds as if you need a good opener to set the theme–maybe a staged modern argument between scholars?

You might want to study the script of a BBC documentary, maybe on Darwin, for…[Read more]

Thanks, Lila. I will keep that in mind. I am stepping back from the F2F meeting of Galileo and Will Shakespeare to focus on why Shakespeareans get apoplexy over the attempts of astronomers who attempt to read Hamlet (Peter Usher), for example as containing clues to Shakespeare’s knowledge of “the new philosophy” of Copernicus’ heliocentric solar…[Read more]

For a film, you need a narrative arc. This can be a challenge when dramatizing science history and that is something to keep in mind.

I work in 18th and 19th century women’s natural history travel narratives. Some of these accounts may be potentially filmable and I was recently approached by one producer recently for a Biopic. But I would have to…[Read more]

Hi Gloria,

Yes, that does make more sense.  The period is earlier than mine–I work in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with a  focus on Romantic poets and “scientists.” Certainly, the moment has come for consilience.  I think a film that shows how the past couple hundred  years are relatively unique in our aggressive separation of the…[Read more]

A project that crosses the arts and the sciences sounds like an interesting one if there is a focus relevant to current issues. I have to bridge the two daily. I have a Ph.D. in chemistry and an M.A. in creative writing and teach both chemistry and writing classes. I find the cultural differences between workers in the sciences and humanities…[Read more]

Hello Gloria and Lisa,

This sounds fascinating. I’m an out-of-towner on this one but the connections are intriguing, especially given their speculative nature. I work on Chaucer’s Treatise on the Astrolabe and so have a (deeply) vested interest in crossing the borders between Arts and Sciences. I’ll be watching this space with a lot of…[Read more]

Hi, Lisa,

We chose the two contemporaries because of new information we had from Ewen Whitaker, a British astronomer who has made a working Digges Perspective Glass. After researching that Will and his men stayed at the Digges family home in Stratford, where he almost certainly saw the copy of astronomer Tycho Brahe’s Epistolae (with the name…[Read more]

Hi Gloria,

Just out of curiosity, why Galileo and Shakespeare? There are so many examples of poets and men of science who really did cross the line between arts and sciences. Why not some of them?

Cheers,

Lisa Ann