NAS announces visual culture and evolution online symposium
The Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences will co-host the "Visual Culture and Evolution Online Symposium" with the Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) and Johns Hopkins University's Master of Arts in Museum Studies Program. The online symposium will take place on the Internet from April 5 through April 14.
A group of more than 30 international experts - including artists, scientists, historians, ethicists, curators, sociologists, and writers - will discuss at this event the intersections between the visual arts and evolution. This past year, in celebration of the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his book, On the Origin of Species, a number of conferences were held around the world focusing on the impact of the concept of evolution. This symposium will be a platform to discuss both the ideas generated from those activities and the present impact of evolutionary thought on visual culture.
The symposium, which will be conducted through software designed for online courses, will be publicly accessible at http://www.vcande.org. The online format overcomes geographic and financial barriers, enabling leading figures in these fields from around the world to engage in the discussion without a major disruption to their research and practices.
Kevin Finneran, editor in chief of Issues in Science and Technology, will moderate the discussion. Issues is the quarterly policy journal published by the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and University of Texas at Dallas.
Symposium panelists:
Suzanne Anker, Chair, BFA Fine Arts Department, School of Visual Arts, New York City
Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator, Department of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art, New York City
Brandon Ballengee, Artist and Ph.D. Candidate, University of Applied Sciences and Art, Hochschule for Gestaltung, Zurich, Switzerland
May R. Berenbaum, Professor and Head, Department of Entomology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Catherine Chalmers, Artist, New York City
Constance Clark, Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies Program, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Mass.
Christina Cogdell, Associate Professor of Design and Art History, University of California, Davis
Nathaniel Comfort, Associate Professor, Institute of the History of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
Barbara Creed, Professor of Screen Studies and Head of the School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne, Australia
Marta de Menezes, Artist-in-Residence, MRC Clinical Sciences Centre, Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine, London
David A. Edwards, Professor of the Practice of Biomedical Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
Daniel Glaser, Head of Special Projects and Public Engagement, Wellcome Trust, London
David Haussler, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and Director of the Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
Tracy Hicks, Artist, Dallas
Jay Hosler, Comic Book Artist and Assistant Professor of Biology at Juniata College, Huntingdon, Pa.
Eduardo Kac, Artist, Chicago
Assimina Kaniari, Academic Visitor, Department of Art History, University of Oxford, United Kingdom, and Lecturer in Western Art, Department of Art History and Theory, Athens School of Fine Arts, Greece
Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette, Research Associate, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Washington, D.C.
Barbara J. Larson, Associate Professor of Art History, University of West Florida, Pensacola
Ellen K. Levy, Visiting Scholar, New York University, New York City
Roger Malina, Executive Editor, Leonardo Publications, Cambridge, Mass.
Gunalan Nadarajan, Vice Provost for Research, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore
Andrew Patrizio, Professor and Director of Research Development, Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland
Alexis Rockman, Artist, New York City
Michael Ruse, Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Program in History and Philosphy of Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee
Michael Sappol, Curator-Historian, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Md.
Barbara Schaal, Mary-Dell Chilton Distinguished Professor of Biology, Washington University, St. Louis
Kirsten Shepherd-Barr, Lecturer in Modern Drama, St. Catherine's College, Oxford, United Kingdom
Todd Siler, Co-Founder and President, Think Like a Genius, LLC, Greenwood Village, Colo.
Jonathan Smith, Professor of English and Director of the Science and Technology Studies Program, University of Michigan, Dearborn
Barbara Stafford, Art Historian, William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor Emerita, University of Chicago, Chicago
JD Talasek, Director, Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C.
Paul Vanouse, Associate Professor of Art, University of Buffalo, Buffalo, N.Y.
Rick Welch, Dean of Arts and Sciences Emertitus, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Affiliated Research Scholar, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
EO Wilson, Pellegrino University Professor Emeritus and Honorary Curator in Entomology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
David Yager, Dean of the Arts and Professor of Art, University of California, Santa Cruz
Provided by National Academy of Sciences
