Articles by Stuart Robertson

Third Annual ‘Science & the Public’ Conference, University of Manchester, 21st and 22nd, June 2008

The past twenty years of scholarly study has demonstrated that science communication is a much more complex process than merely publishing in scientific journals and attending scientific meetings. Today the sciences are linked to society through many different channels of communication. The public interfaces with science during controversies that involve scientists as well as journalists, politicians and the citizenry as a whole. This intersection of science and the public raises many questions about the motivations of, and constraints on, actors involved in producing information about science for non-professional audiences. It also raises some fascinating questions about the nature, contexts and goals of the public communication of science from both a contemporary and historic perspective. This conference aims to bring together the wide ranging strands of academia that consider science as it intersects with non-scientific cultures.

Possible topics may include:

• Patients and publics in health services
• Notions of expertise in the public
• Public science and science policy
• Technological development and the public
• Science communication theory in practice
• News and entertainment media
• Science on the internet
• Science, technology and medicine in museums
• Public interest and ‘the public interest’

We would particularly like to encourage those taking a critical approach to studying the public communication of technology and/or medicine to submit abstracts. The conference organizers also encourage full panel submissions and roundtable sessions on all topics related to the social, cultural, political, and ethical issues surrounding science & the public.

Panel proposals should include a panel abstract and individual abstracts for each of the papers on the panel as well as contact information (name, affiliation, email) of the presider (moderator) and all panel members. Individual paper proposals for a 20-minute presentation should submit an abstract (no longer than 300 words). Roundtable proposals should be a single abstract with names and contact information for all presenters.

All submissions should be emailed to scienceandpublic@googlemail.com by 14th March 2008. Please send enquires to this address as well.

The H. G. Wells Society Annual Conference, Imperial College/Conway Hall,
London, 28-29 September 2007

Proposals for 20-minute papers, or for panels of 2-3 papers, are invited
for this year’s H. G. Wells Society Annual conference. The conference
will be hosted by both Imperial College, London (on the 28 September)
and by Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London (on the 29 September). The
first day of the event will include a plenary lecture by the science
fiction writer, Stephen Baxter.

The conference will focus on ‘Wells, Science and Philosophy’. Proposals
may centre on either Wells and science or Wells and philosophy
exclusively, or might examine the intersection of both science and
philosophy in the author’s work. Proposals might focus on, but are not
limited to: Wells and evolutionary biology; Wells and Physics; Wells and
Darwin/Huxley; Wells and Astronomy; Wells and Plato; Wells and
Liberalism.

Proposals of 300 words should be submitted via email
attachment, no late than June 11 2007. Please include a brief
biographical note, and send proposals with ‘Wells, Science and
Philosophy’ as the subject, to Dr Steven McLean.

Dr Vike Martina Plock writes

We are looking for one or two delegates to join us on a panel on neuroscience and literary modernism at the MSA 9th Annual Conference “Geographies of Visual and Literary Culture�? in Long Beach, CA (1 – 4 November 2007).

Read the rest of this entry »