“This essay is about a transition from the humanities to the sciences (life science). It shows the hesitancy in giving up one thing for another, but the hesitancy itself turns out to be not just frustrations in trying to learn something new but also the opportunity to situate science in a humanities’ context.” – Todd Sformo
Dr. Sheena Calvert is a philosopher/artist/designer and educator, working at both University of the Arts, London and the Royal College of Art. She has an active interest in the intersections between a wide range of creative disciplines, including practices ranging from typography and experimental book-works, to works involving sound/performance. She is particularly concerned with exploring the implications of emergent language-based technologies, including developments in ‘natural’ language technologies, which potentially impact on the future of human language.
Jonathan O. Chimakonam Ph.D, is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Calabar, Nigeria. He is also a Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. His teaching and research interests cover the areas of African Philosophy, Logic, Philosophy of Mind, Environmental Ethics and Postmodern/Postcolonial Thought. In this exclusive interview he discusses his aim to break new grounds in African philosophy by formulating a system that unveils new concepts and opens new vistas for thought (Conversational philosophy); a method that represents a new approach to philosophising in African and intercultural philosophies (Conversational thinking); and a system of logic that grounds them both (Ezumezu).
Giuliana Mazzoni is Professor of Psychology, University of Hull. Human memory represents her main research interest, and more specifically the study on how personal memories are remembered in normal people and in those whose ability to remember is exceptional. Her work on memory has been featured in newspapers and magazines in the UK (among many, The Sunday Times) and around the world (among many,The Washington Post).
Inspired by an aesthetic in which art, science, medicine and ecology intersect, Elaine Whittaker’s art practice considers biology as contemporary art practice. Based principally in installation, sculpture, painting, drawing and digital imagery, her artworks incorporate a range of materials: from the traditional, such as paint, pigment and wax, to the unconventional, such as mosquitoes, salt crystals, cells and live microorganisms. They have been exhibited nationally and internationally, in art and science galleries, and featured in literary, medical and art magazines, including William Myers’ book, Bio Art: Altered Realities (2015). In this article she reflects on Contained, her 2018 exhibition, and the effects of illness on identity as experienced by her mother when she contracted Tuberculosis at an early age.
Dr Caitlin Curtis is a research fellow at The University of Queensland. She has broad expertise in genetics including conservation genetics, ancient DNA, DNA forensics, and vector genomics. Caitlin is fascinated by the intersection between genomics and technology and the ensuing privacy and data protection issues.
Matthew MacKisack is a cultural historian and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Exeter Medical School. He has published numerous articles in intellectual and cultural history, focusing on how imagining and imagination have been employed and understood.
M M Owen is a British nonfiction author. He obtained his PhD at the University of British Columbia, and runs an animation studio called Misfit Productions.
Florian Coulmas is Professor of Japanese Society and Sociolinguistics at the IN-EAST Institute of East Asian Studies at Duisburg-Essen University. He has published numerous books, including ‘An Introduction to Multilingualism’ (OUP, 2017) and ‘Writing and Society: A Introduction’ (Cambridge University Press, 2013). In 2016, he was awarded the Meyer-Struckmann-Prize for Research in Arts and Social Sciences. For the past three decades he has served as Associate Editor of the ‘International Journal of the Sociology of Languages’, during which time he has observed the steadily increasing use of the concept of identity in both general and scholarly publications. His latest publication, ‘Identity: A Very Short Introduction’, was published in February 2019.