Martin Willis has written a very short report on the Historicism plenary on the final day of this year’s conference. He has uploaded this onto his papers page on academia.edu – here is a link, for anyone who missed the conference itself.

Applications are invited for BSLS small grants to advance and/or promote the study of literature and science. Examples of things for which the awards might be used are expenses for visiting speakers, seminar series and debates, and other funding to stage events on literature and science. The scheme is not intended for individual conference travel, but applications to stage special BSLS panels at appropriate conferences will be considered.

Applicants should be members of BSLS (with membership paid for 2012) and should apply by making a case, in up to 300 words, for how the award will contribute to the development of literature and science; a brief costing should be appended to the end of the application. Where funding is sought for BSLS panels a clear indication of the scope of the panel, and of its contribution to the understanding of literature and science, should be included; applications for panels at the 2013 BSLS conference are not eligible. Recipients of small grants are asked to acknowledge BSLS sponsorship appropriately in publicity for events and to provide a brief report on events.

The application should be e-mailed, as a Word attachment, to the BSLS Treasurer, Daniel Cordle (daniel.cordle@ntu.ac.uk), by June 30 2012.
Applications will be considered by the BSLS Executive Committee and a total of up to £300 will be awarded. Applicants may apply for any amount up to £300; in some instances a proportion of the amount applied for may be awarded.
Successful applicants will be informed over the summer. Queries about the scheme may be directed to Daniel Cordle, but no correspondence will be entered into about the decisions of the Committee. International members of BSLS are welcome to apply for the awards, but should note that they will be distributed in the form of bank cheques made out in pounds sterling. Serving members of the BSLS Executive Committee are not eligible to apply for the awards.

A debate about the interrelations between science and contemporary poetry, edited by Gilbert Adair, has been published in the online poetry and poetics magazine Jacket2 under the title ‘Like a Metaphor: Ongoing relations between “poetry” and “science”‘. Contributors include Gilbert Adair, Rae Armantrout, Amy Catanzano, John Cayley, Tina Darragh, Marcella Durand, Allen Fisher, James Harvey, Peter Middleton, Evelyn Reilly, and Joan Retallack. https://jacket2.org/feature/metaphor

London Interdisciplinary Discussion Group

http://londoninterdisciplinarydiscussiongroup.wordpress.com/

Transplantation: 25th June 2012

5-7pm, K3.11 Raked Lecture Theatre, King’s College London, Strand.

At our next meeting we will be discussing transplantation. Our speakers will be Paul Craddock, Adam Ferner and Refik Gökmen. The work of all these speakers concerns transplantation in some way, and you can read more about Paul, Adam and Refik below. As usual, their presentations will be followed by an hour of general discussion.

All three speakers will be addressing the ways in which transplantation relates to our understanding of ‘life’. They have suggested that it may be helpful to think about the following in advance. No need to do anything in particular, just some ideas to get you thinking before coming along!

· What sort of conceptual space allows for the possibility of bodily transplantation?

· How do you understand transplantation?

· In what ways do you think transplantation relates to transfusion?

· How do you think modern transplantation shaped the boundaries of life and death?

· How does transplantation affect the way we understand ownership of life?

Paul Craddock

Paul is a Ph.D. candidate currently writing on pre-20th century transplant surgery and transfusion at the London Consortium. After a brief time studying music and performing arts, living in rural China, and working for the National Health Service, Paul made the switch to cultural and medical history. In this field, he has been invited to lecture around the UK, in Europe, and in the US. He has never had a transplant and never received a transfusion – his interest in these procedures come from thinking about generally how we relate to the material world by making transactions that are at the same time bodily and financial.

Currently based in London, Paul is the Director of London Consortium Television, the audio-visual arm of the London Consortium. And in another professional life, he shoots and produces films for medical establishments and museum exhibitions. He has films currently on exhibition in the Royal Academy of Arts and the British Dental Association Museum.

Adam Ferner

Adam Ferner is currently doing his PhD at Birkbeck College. His research is focussed primarily on how philosophical biological concerns impact on the ‘personal identity debate’ as it stands in analytic metaphysics. He also works for the Royal Institute of Philosophy, and does editorial work for the journals Think and Philosophy, and regularly contributes to The Philosophers Magazine.

Refik Gökmen

Refik is a Clinical Lecturer in Renal Medicine at the MRC Centre for Transplantation based at the Guy’s Campus of King’s College London. He recently completed his PhD in Immunology in the same department, and now divides his time between ongoing laboratory-based research into basic immune mechanisms, and clinical work in nephrology and transplantation on the South Thames training programme in Renal Medicine.

He qualified in medicine from Cambridge and UCL, and has maintained an interest in the ethical and philosophical dimensions of both clinical practice and scientific research ever since his BA degree in the History & Philosophy of Science.

Applications to the spring 2012 round of the BSLS Small Grants Scheme have been considered. The scheme will help to fund a one-day symposium, ‘Moving Toward Science,’ organised by the North East Postgraduate Research Group for the Long Nineteenth Century (NENC) in late September, 2012.

Thanks to all who applied to the scheme. The summer round of the scheme will be announced soon.

Over the Summer period, the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) at the University of Edinburgh will be hosting a series of three half-day seminars devoted to exploring the relationship between the body and movement within the intersections of the sciences and the humanities.  Research that explores the interstices of the humanities, materiality and the sciences is rapidly expanding but is also relatively recent.  The Bodies in Movement Seminar Series is devoted to full participatory discussion of such research which involves scholars leading and developing new ideas which address materiality in the intersection of the arts and the sciences, early-career academics and current students.  Each seminar in the Bodies in Movement Seminar Series will spotlight the work of an established scholar who will present material related to pre-selected pieces of their published writing. This will be followed by three 15 minute responses, after which we will open the floor to more detailed discussion of the various issues raised with all participants. Participants are asked to prepare in advance for these seminars by reading key material chosen by our invited presenters.

• 25 May 2012: Scott Wilson (Media and Communication, Kingston University) will discuss his work on schizophrenia, neoliberalism and cinema.

• 14 June 2012: Rosemarie Garland-Thomson (Women’s Studies, Emory University) will open a discussion on her current work in the field of disability studies and the humanities. (This seminar will be held outside IASH).

• 2 July 2012: Stuart Elden (Geography, Durham University) will tease out the intertwined geographical and material intricacies of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus.

Further details on format, topics, materials, and respondents can be found on the Bodies in Movement Seminar Series webpage (http://bodiesinmovement.blogspot.co.uk/p/bodies-in-movement-seminar-series.html). Attendance is free but places are limited. If you would like to participate in any of the seminars, please contact one of the organisers. Further information will be sent to participants via email.  Karin Sellberg (k.j.k.sellberg@gmail.com) Lena Wånggren (l.e.wanggren@sms.ed.ac.uk) Kamillea Aghtan (kamillea@hotmail.com).

Beckett and Brain Science

Postgraduate conference at Keele University, 12th May 2012

Keynote Speakers: Prof. Joanna Verran (MMU), Prof. Sharon Ruston (Salford) & Prof. David Amigoni (Keele)

This one-day postgraduate conference will consider links between science and literature from the 1800s to the present day. Despite the lacuna that is traditionally posited between these two subjects, from the Romantic beginning of the nineteenth century and throughout the Victorian period, artists, writers and scientists alike were conscious of the confluences between their disciplines. Fascination with and anxiety over the progress of science has continued to preoccupy writers into the twentieth century and beyond. This conference will explore the intimate relationships between the two cultures of science and literature, and will examine the ways in which concerns of the long nineteenth century have continued to express themselves in the present day.

For further information, please see http://litscikeele.blogspot.com/.

University of Manchester

Wednesday 25 April 2012, 9.30am-5.30pm

Many people look suspiciously at science in fictional media and may ask themselves: Why don’t the creators of fiction ever talk to real scientists? In fact, those who write novels, craft television scripts, create movies, and produce stage plays do speak with scientists on a regular basis. This workshop explores how science provides challenges and opportunities for the creators of fiction.

By bringing together leading entertainment professionals, novelists, arts scholars, and scientists the workshop will forge new relationships between the scientific community and the arts/entertainment community. One goal of the workshop is to begin discussions about creating a “Science and Entertainment” collaboration programme in the UK, equivalent to the Science and Entertainment Exchange run by the National Academy of Sciences in the US.

Putting the Science in Fiction is sponsored by the University of Manchester’s Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine (CHSTM), Centre for New Writing, Faculty of Life Sciences, and Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in the Arts (CIDRA). There is no cost for the workshop, but spaces are limited so you will need to book a place by contacting scienceinfiction.manchester@gmail.com.

For further details contact the organisers, Dr David Kirby and Geoff Ryman.

Please note this forthcoming event on 30 April 2.15pm at the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of Oxford, 45-47 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6PE .