
new
formations no
49
Guest Editors: Philip Tew and Wendy Wheeler
This issue of new formations tries to overcome some of the binary rigidities that impede a dialectical understanding of science. Scientific materialism and realism are at the heart of the project of modernity. Nevertheless, and in spite of its real emancipatory powers, science and its claims to truth seldom entirely escape from the ideological envelope of their times or from the nets of funding sources, interest group concerns and career-building in which, like everything else, they are ensnared. In addition, the scientific world-view often re-inforces a positivistic and narrow version of what counts as facts, resisting wider cultural assessments of value. Yet, the idea that scientific endeavour is just bad, and that our best energies should be directed towards a wholesale critique of its ideological underpinnings, is equally one-sided. This collection of essays attempts to find a way through the pitfalls that litter the way to a more nuanced understanding of the complex figures that make up the relationship between science and culture.
Contents and Contributors
Christopher Norris: PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE AS 'HISTORY OF THE PRESENT':
QUANTUM THEORY, ANTI-REALISM, AND PARADIGM CHANGE
Patricia Waugh: SCIENCE AND THE AESTHETICS OF ENGLISH MODERNISM
Merja Polvinen: READING THE TEXTURE OF REALITY: INTERPRETATIONS OF
CHAOS THEORY IN LITERATURE AND LITERARY STUDIES
Peter Hallward: 'EVERYTHING IS REAL': GILLES DELEUZE AND CREATIVE
UNIVOCITY
Lisa Lynch: TRANS-GENESIS: AN INTERVIEW WITH EDUARDO KAC
Steve Baker: PHILOSOPHY IN THE WILD? KAC AND DERRIDA ON ANIMALS AND
RESPONSIBILITY
Kate Soper: HUMANS, ANIMALS, MACHINES
Debra Benita Shaw: THE SCIENTIST GOES SURFING: TIMOTHY LEARY, LSD
AND THE INTERNET
Roger Luckhurst: DEMON-HAUNTED DARWINISM
Deborah Philips: FUTURE IMPERFECT: VERSIONS OF SCIENCE IN THE THEME
PARK
Megan Stern: A BRIEF HISTORY OF STEPHEN HAWKING: MAKING SCIENTIFIC
MEANING IN CONTEMPORARY ANGLO-AMERICAN CULTURE
REVIEWS
Elizabeth B Silva: EVERYDAY LIFE INVENTED AND REVISITED
Esther Leslie: DECADE GRANDEUR
Eleanor Byrne: ETHNICITY BEYOND THE PALE
Mark Perryman: FANDOM RESISTANCE
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