Category: Cocurricular Events
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Faculty Candidate Presentation #2 – Jessica Koski
STS Majors and minors, please note that the candidate presentations CAN serve as cocurricular events – All presentations will end at 12:55 with a Q&A to follow. Students and faculty with 1:00 classes can leave when necessary.
Jessica Koski, Ph.D Candidate in Sociology, Northwestern University, degree expected June 2014
Tuesday, February 11th, 12:15-1:15, PB205
Presentation title: “Social Constructionism and Global Warming: Friends or Foes?”
Summary: Science and technology studies (STS) scholars have devoted significant attention to how climate change is “constructed” as a scientific and political problem. But such work is not without controversy. Many researchers charge that social constructionist accounts of global warming fuel climate skepticism and, as a result, impede policymaking. Are constructionist analyses worth the risk? Drawing on research on the mutual production of climate science and climate politics, this talk discusses the promises and perils of social constructionist investigations of environmental concerns. Classic constructionist accounts underscore how powerful actors distort science to serve particular ends. Such interest-based accounts deliver a powerful blow to science’s public credibility for many view “good” science as that which is untouched by politics. At the same time, the lens of social construction also brings to light the ways in which social variables shape scientific practice itself. Better understanding the co-production of political and scientific agendas, as well as how politics is built into scholars’ research design, may spur more nuanced and reflexive debate. It also has the potential to unveil sources of political gridlock. However, it too requires acknowledging science’s inherent social component. This review encourages a reevaluation of how we differentiate between “good” and “bad” science and further pushes us to consider more explicitly the role of STS scholarship (and scholars) in policy debates.
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Faculty Candidate Presentation #1 Jesse Van Gerven
STS Majors and minors, please note that the candidate presentations CAN serve as cocurricular events – All presentations will end at 12:55 with a Q&A to follow. Students and faculty with 1:00 classes can leave when necessary.
Jesse Van Gerven, Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology, University of Missouri, degree expected May 2014
Graduate Instructor, University of Missouri
Tuesday, Feb. 4th, 12:15-1:15 in PB205
Presentation Title: “The Social Dimensions of Energy Systems in Contemporary Societies”
Summary:
We will be discussing the ways energy systems (electricity) take on important social, cultural, political, and economic meanings as these systems are developed, implemented, contested and negotiated. We will focus on how the negative costs of energy systems, manifested primarily through environmental pollution and ecological destruction, disproportionately impact poor and minority communities. More specifically, we will examine the production of nuclear power and the associated nuclear-fuel-chain as a means of demonstrating the social dimensions of energy systems; again focusing on how the associated environmental and human-health burdens become concentrated in low-income communities and communities of color.
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Another co-curricular opportunity ~ with our own Dr. Glennan, Jan. 28th
Brown Bag Series – “The New Mechanical Philosophy” by Stuart Glennan
The Butler Brown Bag Series for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Work presents “The New Mechanical Philosophy” by Stuart Glennan, Philosophy and Religion, on Tuesday, January 28, noon-1:00 p.m. in AU111 (UClub).
Natural and social scientists often characterize their work as a search for the mechanisms responsible for the phenomena they study. While this way of thinking about the nature of science has its origins in 17th century philosophy, contemporary philosophers of science have only recently begun to think about mechanisms. The result has been an explosion of work on the nature of mechanisms, and their relation to causation, explanation, modeling, and discovery that has come to be known as the New Mechanical Philosophy.
Please join us for a discussion with Stuart Glennan on his sabbatical research for his book on this emerging area in the philosophy of science.
Students, staff, and faculty are all welcome. No RSVP required. Light refreshments will be provided – please feel free to bring your lunch.
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1st co-curricular opportunity of 2014 ~ Daniel Levitin, cognitive psychologist, January 28, 7:30
Butler University’s J. James Woods Lectures in the Sciences and Mathematics presents cognitive psychologist Daniel Levitin at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 28 in the Howard L. Schrott Center for the Arts.
Levitin, the James McGill Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at McGill University, is the author of the book This Is Your Brain On Music: The Science of a Human Obsession (Dutton/Penguin, 2006), which stayed on The New York Times and The (Toronto) Globe and Mail bestseller lists for more than 16 months. Two award-winning documentaries based on “This Is Your Brain On Music” have been broadcast internationally: The Music Instinct co-starred Levitin and Bobby McFerrin, and The Musical Brain co-starred Levitin and Sting.
As a musician (tenor saxophone, guitar, and bass), he has performed with Mel Tormé, Nancy Wilson, David Byrne, Roseanne Cash, Sting, Bobby McFerrin, Rodney Crowell, Victor Wooten, Blue Öyster Cult, members of the Steve Miller Band, and Santana.
Levitin earned his doctorate in cognitive psychology from the University of Oregon. He has been a visiting professor at Stanford University, where he taught courses in the psychology, computer science, human biology, music, and anthropology departments, and the School of Education. He has also been a visiting professor in psychology at UC Berkeley and Dartmouth.
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‘Even Me—a film about HIV – A cocurricular opportunity
‘Even Me—a film about HIV
There’s going to be a terrific short film on campus this Saturday. It’s called “Even Me” and it’s about the HIV/AIDS crisis among people ages 50 and older, especially in communities of color. The film was made by Megan Ebor, who works with older adults in southern California. She will be at the screening to talk about the film. The film is part of the10th annual Indiana HIV Awareness Day, a partnership project of the Indiana Minority Health Coalition and others. This screening is sponsored by the STS Program, the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, and the Department of Sociology & Criminology. It’s in PB 150 1:00-3:00.
You can check out the film’s wesite at this address:
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Sylvia Earle on Sustainable Seas Tuesday @ 7:30PM
Come see National Geographic Explorer Sylvia Earle
Sylvia Earle on the question for Sustainable Seas, Tuesday October 15 at 7:30 PM in the Reilly Room. This event satisfies the BCR requirement as well as the STS co-curricular requirement.
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Brent Hege on Science and Faith at the Creation Museum
Come to this great event, available for STS co-curricular credit. 12-1 in AU 111, Wednesday October 9
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Using Moodle to hand in co-curricular reports
This posts introduces our new system for tracking co-curricular events. We have enrolled all STS majors and minors in a Moodle Organization called “STS_students”. You can access it from the “My Moodle menu” at the top left of your Moodle window. Inside that organization you will find something that looks a lot like a course. You will see listed “Cocurricular Activity reports”. There are 6 links, one for each required activity. After you go to an event, click on one of the links (start at the top); you will be asked for the name, date and topic of the event, as well as to write a brief summary and reflection on the topic. That summary need not be more than a paragraph or two. I will review your entries and mark them as complete. When you’ve got all 6 (or the first 3 if you are a minor) you are done.
NOTE FOR THOSE WHO HAVE ALREADY HANDED IN EVENT REPORTS: We would ask that you find copies of the reports you submitted for past events, and that you cut and paste the material into the online report. I’m sorry — but we can’t do that for you. If you have handed in reports and don’t have lost your originals, you can contact Mary Proffitt to track them down.
Please let Mary or me know if you are having difficulties, and please get any events from this or previous years onto Moodle before advising starts in a couple of weeks. Especially if you are a senior, please get everything in.
If you are looking for an event, National Geographic Explorer Sylvia Earle is here next week.
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Upcoming community events:
There are some fun events coming up in the community. Check them out! (And remember that you need to attend community events like these!) ~ Dr. Reeves
1. The Ain’t Too Late Show: A climate change game show
The world’s first entertainment show about our profound ecological challenges combines the talents of ecotainer Jim Poyser with the theatrical acumen of Sean Baker, Travis DiNicola and Karen Irwin. Designer Will McCarty and Producer William Fisher add their voices to the performance, which features an opening monologue by Poyser highlighting the month’s positive news, followed by a quiz show format where contestants can win valuable prizes from local merchants.
The Ain’t Too Late Show is performed at the IndyFringe Theatre Building, 719 East St Clair Street, on the third Tuesday of each month. Doors open at 6; show runs from 6:30-7:30. Cost: $5.
2. Join the Eco Student Summit II at IUPUI on Oct. 19.
See their website for details:
