News

A vacancy for a Research Fellow to work on the AHRC Science in Culture Theme Research Grant ‘Rethinking Mind and Meaning: A case study from a co-disciplinary approach’ is currently being advertised at the University of St Andrews.

The School of Psychology and Neuroscience at St. Andrews is seeking a Research Fellow for 20 months. The position is available from 1st January 2015, or as soon as possible thereafter, for an interdisciplinary project in the areas of Developmental and Evolutionary psychology and Philosophy of mind.  The AHRC funded project —“Rethinking Mind and Meaning: A case study from a co-disciplinary approach ”— is a co-disciplinary collaboration between the Schools of Psychology and Neuroscience and the Department of Philosophy, funded by the AHRC. It aims to combine advanced conceptual discussion and innovative empirical research, addressing the issue of to what extent animals and young infants can reason about things that they can not directly observe, and if they understand complex notions such as knowledge, causes and intentions.

The post will involve designing and implementing studies with nonhuman primates and human children, as well as participating in advanced, cross disciplinary conceptual discussions with the core research team and visiting scientists. The post holder will also collaborate in preparing presentations at international conferences and organizing and participating in cross disciplinary seminars.

Candidates should have a good first degree in a relevant discipline, and a PhD, ideally in developmental/evolutionary psychology or similar. Experience of preparing and conducting experiments with nonhuman primates and/or human children is essential. Knowledge of theoretical and conceptual controversies at a cross disciplinary level, especially in philosophy and cognitive sciences, will be highly desirable. We welcome applications from candidates that have recently completed their PhDs, as well as those with some postdoctoral experience.

Informal enquiries can be directed to Dr Juan C Gómez (jg5@st-andrews.ac.uk).

The post is advertised here: https://www.vacancies.st-andrews.ac.uk

The deadline for applications is 3rd November 2014.

From unexpected partnerships, new synergies emerge. This is the focus for two new projects funded under the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)’s Science in Culture theme.  The theme aims to support the development of reciprocal interactions between the arts and humanities and the sciences, leading to new ways of working, new research questions and topics with the potential to transform participating disciplines.

The Science in Culture Research Grants are outstandingly novel in terms of ambition and scope. They develop the relationships between the sciences and the arts and humanities in an innovative way and encourage significant disciplinary exchange.

Sense of agency and responsibility: integrating legal and neurocognitive accounts led by Professor Patrick Haggard, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London awarded £172,357.

Our legal systems generally view individuals as having control over their actions. Yet, expanding scientific knowledge suggests that an individual’s actions are the result of brain processes that are independent of consciousness. This tension has great implications for criminal law as well as our understanding of ourselves. The study will include experiments which assess agency and interdisciplinary work with neuroscientists, legal experts, and philosophers.

Rethinking mind and meaning: A case study from a co-disciplinary approach led by Dr Juan-Carlos Gomez, School of Psychology and Neuroscience at University of St Andrews awarded £197,041.

Understanding thought and communication in animals and non-verbal human infants perplexes linguists, philosophers, psychologists and biologists. This project will bring together these researchers to consider how we might progress our understanding of what thought is, the distinctions between human and animal minds, and the relation between thinking and communicating about unobservable things. The project will include experiments and work with the Living Links Centre at Edinburgh Zoo to engage with school children and the public.

Theme Leadership Fellow for Science in Culture Professor Barry Smith said: “These two projects will add to the diversity of research currently on-going under the Science in Culture theme. The projects reflect in different ways on human nature, the workings of the mind, and the nature of our world. They will both potentially transform understanding of their subjects and develop new models of collaboration”.

For further information contact Alex Pryce (AHRC) on 01793 41 6025 or a.pryce@ahrc.ac.uk

Notes to editors

• The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funds world-class, independent researchers in a wide range of subjects: ancient history, modern dance, archaeology, digital content, philosophy, English literature, design, the creative and performing arts, and much more. This financial year the AHRC will spend approximately £98m to fund research and postgraduate training in collaboration with a number of partners. The quality and range of research supported by this investment of public funds not only provides social and cultural benefits but also contributes to the economic success of the UK. For further information on the AHRC, please go to: www.ahrc.ac.uk
• Find out more about the AHRC’s Science in Culture theme: http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/Funding-Opportunities/Research-funding/Themes/Science-in-Culture/Pages/Science-in-Culture.aspx

In the lead-up to the Being Human Festival AHRC researchers from Large Grant ‘Cultural and Scientific Perceptions of Human Chicken Interactions’ are calling for entries to their Digital Chicken Show, which will form part of their event ‘Chicken Nuggets: A History of the World in 100 egs’  at Vindolanda on Sunday 16^th November.

Do you keep chickens?

Are you a museum with chicken-related objects in your collections?

Do you create, or own, chicken art?

Take a photo showing your favourite chicken (and you?) and send it in with a description, either via twitter @Chicken_Project or by email info@scicultchickens.org

Britain’s first Poultry Show was held at London Zoo in 1845. Ever since then national and international competitions have been held to showcase the variety and aesthetics of rare breed chickens. But human fascination for the beauty of these animals pre-dates 1845, with many museums holding chicken-related artefacts made by ancient cultures. Today chickens continue to be the inspiration for artworks; even animals that fall short of ‘breed standards’ are often considered visually pleasing to their owners. The Digital Chicken Show is open to all: modern birds (from rare breeds to cross-breeds), ancient birds (artefacts and iconography) and artworks from all periods.

We are looking to capture the full a range of human-chicken interactions (both past and present) to highlight the importance of this species in human culture and thought, and to chart how attitudes to the chicken have changed through time.

All images will be exhibited at Vindolanda as part of the Chicken Nuggets: A History of the World in 100 eg.s event which takes place on Sunday 16th November. Entries will be judged and winners will receive a mystery prize.

Chicken Nuggets: A History of the World in 100 e.gs is organised as part of Being Human: A Festival of the Humanities which takes place across the country from 16^th to 23^rd November 2014.

Will your chicken be ‘Best in Show’?

Join in the events at Vindolanda on Sunday 16th November to find out how, when and why the chicken crossed the globe. Book your free ticket here

AHRC funded researchers Dr Charlotte Sleigh, University of Kent and artist Sarah Craske from Science in Culture Theme Innovation award, ‘Metamorphoses: Gaming Art and Science with Ovid’, were featured on ITV Meridian news on Tuesday 21st October.

The project led by Dr Sleigh, University of Kent working alongside scientist Simon Park and artist Sarah Craske, will ‘read’ the book through a biological lens, analysing the bacteria, fungi, viruses and skin cell it has picked up as it has been passed from reader to reader. Their findings will be displayed in a final exhibition. Further information about the project is available here.

The feature is available to watch here http://www.itv.com/news/meridian/story/2014-10-21/the-biology-of-books/

Call for papers: ‘Articulating Science, Technology and Law: Regarding, Reflecting, and Remaking Society’

AHRC Science in Culture Theme Research Network Technoscience, Law and Society is inviting submissions for contributions to their final conference, ‘Articulating Science, Technology and Law: Regarding, Reflecting, and Remaking Society’ which will take place on 9-10th April 2015.

Confirmed plenary speakers:

Mario Biagioli (University of California at Davis)

Amade M’Charek (University of Amsterdam)

Barbara Prainsack (Kings College London)

Ayo Wahlberg (University of Copenhagen)

David Winickoff (University of California at Berkeley)

The conference will provide a platform for conversations across all thematic issues of relevance to the Network, including for example:

• Expertise, knowledge and the making of norms and regulations
• Law and materiality
• Ethics and the regulation of science
• Methodological conversations in science and technology studies (STS) and law
• Law, technology and social practices
• Science in the courtrooms
• Markets, technologies and the law
• Global governance, scientific knowledge and global justice
• Law, science and the regulation of bodies

Abstracts of up to 200 words for paper contributions should be sent to e.cloatre@kent.ac.uk by the 15th January 2015 . We will also consider proposals for small  panels or roundtable discussions involving 3-4 papers.

Up to 15 bursaries are available for non-UK based early career scholars (including PhD students). These will normally be up to £250 for Europe-based  scholars and £400 for non-Europe based scholars. Please email your abstract and CV to e.cloatre@kent.ac.uk before the 15th December 2014 to apply.

New grants explore cutting-edge relationships between the sciences and the arts and humanities.

Seven new Innovation Awards funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) will be expanding and exploring the Science in Culture theme through 12-month projects. These new awards will provide researchers with the opportunity to focus on innovative and collaborative inter-relationships between the sciences and the arts and humanities, and to develop shared ways of working in new or emerging fields.

The full list of projects includes:

• The Eye’s Mind – a study of the neural basis of visual imagination and its role in culture, Professor Adam Zeman, University of Exeter

This project will unite researchers who normally work in isolation from one another in order to study our distinctively human ability to imagine and will highlight links between our experience, brain science and art and will throw light on the wide variation in our capacity to ‘visualise’.

• Metamorphoses: Gaming Art and Science with Ovid, Dr. Charlotte Sleigh, University of Kent

This project centres on analysis of a 300-year-old English copy of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. It will explore the ways in which science and art hybridise to create new meanings for us, in a world that is packed with data of biological, literary and visual varieties.  A final exhibition of the work of a scientist and an artist will encourage visitors to reflect on their own opinions and experiences of the art/science boundary as well as the languages and the practices that are used in each field.

• Poetry by Numbers, Then and Now: Metre, Mathematics, Machines and Manufacture, Dr Jason Hall,  University of Exeter

This project centres on a one-off machine from the early 19^th century; a Latin Verse Machine which “composes lines of poetry”. The project is interested in uncovering and documenting the competencies, methodologies and skill sets needed for the construction of such a device, as well as the extent to which the convergence of these specialisms can be put to productive use in the current day to inform restoration projects relating to Britain’s technological heritage.

• Ancient Sounds: mixing acoustic phonetics, statistics and comparative philology to bring speech back from the past, Professor John Coleman, University of Oxford

This project will apply and further develop new software methods developed in the last few years which work backwards from a number of sources of contemporary audio recordings of simple words in modern languages to regenerate audible spoken words from the past. This work brings science and computation into an area of work that was previously firmly part of Classics and Linguistics.

• Iron from the sky: The Science and Culture of Iron in Ancient Egypt, Professor Monica Grady, Open University

This project will explore how iron was used across Egypt at different times by examining museum collections to see the different types of objects Egyptians used iron to produce. Evidence of what they thought iron to be will be derived from many sources including museum artefacts and ancient texts.

• Dark Matters: an interrogation of thresholds of (im)perceptibility through theoretical cosmology, fine art and anthropology of science, Dr Rebecca Ellis, Lancaster University

This project will bring together an unlikely alliance between theoretical cosmology, fine art and anthropology of science to explore the relationship between human knowledge and perception and the realm of the imperceptible.  The focus for this investigation is invisible dark matter and dark energy. The project aims to identify how disciplinary differences disrupt, challenge and trigger fresh insights as they engage with things that are difficult or perhaps impossible to sense.

• Cyberselves in Immersive Technologies, Professor Tony Prescott, University of Sheffield

People have long been fascinated with the idea of projecting the self-outside of the body, or into a different body, or even into a radically different world.  This project seeks to explore and understand the notion of immersion both in its historical and cultural contexts, and in the ‘here and now’, examining how immersive technology operates and how it effects our brains on bodies.

Professor Barry C Smith, AHRC Leadership Fellow for Science in Culture Theme commented:  ‘Some of the most innovative projects we see these days come from significant collaborations between the sciences, the arts and humanities. These novel interactions bring about new approaches to a shared topic, creating the potential for new knowledge, opening up new fields of inquiry and bringing about new ways of working.’

For further information contact Alex Pryce (AHRC) on 01793 41 6025 or on a.pryce@ahrc.ac.uk

Notes to Editors

• The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funds world-class, independent researchers in a wide range of subjects: ancient history, modern dance, archaeology, digital content, philosophy, English literature, design, the creative and performing arts, and much more. This financial year the AHRC will spend approximately £98m to fund research and postgraduate training in collaboration with a number of partners. The quality and range of research supported by this investment of public funds not only provides social and cultural benefits but also contributes to the economic success of the UK.  www.ahrc.ac.uk
• Find out more about the AHRC’s Science in Culture theme on the AHRC website: http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/Funding-Opportunities/Research-funding/Themes/Science-in-Culture/Pages/Science-in-Culture.aspx . Further information about existing projects is available from the Science in Culture theme website: www.sciculture.ac.uk

Researchers, Dr Martyn Pickersgill and Dr Emilie Cloatre, from AHRC Science in Culture Theme Research Network: ‘Technoscience, Law and Society: Interrogating the Nexus’ have published a new edited collection of essays entitled ‘Knowledge, Technology and Law’.

This publication is a key output from the Technoscience: Law and Society research network which is funded as part of the AHRC Science in Culture Theme.

This new publication explores the relationships between knowledge, technologies, and legal processes which are central to the constitution of contemporary societies.

This new book charts the important interface between studies of law, science and society, as explored from the perspectives of socio-legal studies and the increasingly influential field of science and technology studies. It brings together scholars from both areas to interrogate the joint roles of law and science in the construction and stabilization of socio-technical networks, objects, and standards, as well as their place in the production of contemporary social realities and subjectivities.

Further information about ‘Knowledge, Technology and Law’ published by Routledge in September 2015 is available here http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415628624/

The AHRC funded, Ordered Universe Research Project, led by Dr Giles Gasper, Durham University has been shortlisted for the THE Annual Awards, for the category Research Project of the Year.

The Ordered Universe focuses on the scientific writings of Robert Grosseteste (c.1170-1253), and is an interdisciplinary fusion of medieval specialists with modern scientists. Co-directed by Dr Hannah Smithson (Oxford) and Professor Tom McLeish (Durham), the project involves an international research team, and has resulted in a wide series of publications (including Nature, Nature Physics, Proceedings of the Royal Society, articles in the Economist, the New Statesman and New Scientist,) editions and translations of Grosseteste’s works, for example On Colour, and engagement activities.

Further information about this project is available on the here and on the project blog blog: www.ordered-universe.com

More than 100 free-to-attend events in over 60 venues nationwide

Forget the eponymous TV programme featuring fanciful adventures of vampires, ghosts and werewolves, Being Human is a powerful nine-day festival highlighting the richness and vitality of humanities research to actively engage members of the public. With less than three months to go – the festival runs 15-23 November – the full programme has been published online today (September 8th 2014).

More than 100 free-to-attend public events led by over 60 universities will take place across the UK – from Orkney to Truro, Belfast to Swansea, and Liverpool to Norwich. Events will be hosted in all sorts of places including museums, galleries and cultural and community centres – even caves.

Conceived earlier this year, Being Human is led by the University of London’s School of Advanced Study in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy. Since its launch, over 100 universities have applied to take part in what is the first festival of its kind in the UK.

Festival director, Professor Barry Smith of the School of Advanced Study, said: ‘Being Human will get to the heart of what it means to be human in the digital age. It will show how our attempts to understand and interpret the human world can guide our thinking about science, society and culture, and shape our conception of ourselves.

‘There is a huge amount of exciting work happening in the humanities right now,’ Professor Smith continued, ‘and we have invited universities across the country to hold their own events to highlight the vitality and interdisciplinary nature of humanities today.’

The AHRC Science in Culture Theme will also contribute to the Festival programme. Planned events include:

                Chicken Nuggets: a history of the world in 100 e.gs, Vindolanda Trust, Hexham,

                Conversations on Nature: Science and the Public in the Victorian Age and Now, University of Leicester, Leicester

                People Power, Museum of the History of Science, Oxford

                The Hidden Senses- the secrets of taste and smell, Science Museum Dana Centre, London

                From the Dark Ages to Dark Matter, Durham Cathedral and Ushaw College, Durham University

Find out more about the festival on the Being Human Festival website and follow the latest news about the festival on Twitter at @BeingHumanFest  (hashtag #BeingHuman14).