research
Seminar on Science Studies
The CGES Science Studies Seminar, co-chaired by Thomas Banchoff and Kathryn Olesko, explores interdisciplinary issues arising from the scientific construction of society in Europe, the United States, and around the world.
Since the nineteenth century, rapid scientific advances and their application in a wide variety of contexts--including daily life, culture, economic production, social relations, policy development, legal practice, and ethical and religious reflection--have eroded the traditional separation presumed to exist between science and society. What Max Weber described in terms of rationalization, modernization, and bureaucratization, social scientists and philosophers since the Second World War have expressed as the scientific construction of society. Through the Science Studies Seminar, we seek to examine social and political issues arising from the erosion of the boundary between science and society, including the complementary roles of rationality and ambiguity in discourse and decision-making.
The seminar brings together scholars from a variety of science studies disciplines, including history, philosophy, anthropology, ethnography, cultural theory, economics, sociology, and political science, to address these issues from a comparative perspective. Invited speakers present original work to be discussed in the seminar and published as preprints. Themes vary annually.
The seminar meets 2-3 times per semester, Fridays, 4:15-6:00 PM. All Georgetown faculty and students are invited, as are invited members of the wider Washington, DC academic and policy community.
2003-2004 Program
The theme for spring 2004 is: Nuclear Energy: Political & Historical Perspectives. Nuclear energy for civilian uses was arguably as important as the military uses of nuclear power during the Cold War. This year's Science Studies Seminar examines political, social, and medical issues surrounding the use of nuclear energy after WWII.
- February 2004
- Professor Cathryn Carson, Department of History, Director, Office for the History of Science & Technology, University of California, Berkeley, "Going Nuclear: Science, Politics, and Risk in the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1950s"
2002-2003 Program
The title of the series this year was "Genomic and Stem Cell Research in Historical and Political Perspective". Four leading scholars addressed the roots of the genomic and stem cell debates in the deeper past as well as the impact of rapid advances in cell biology on daily life, scientific conduct, ethical discourse, and policy direction in Europe and the United States.
- October 2002
- Leroy Walters, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. Professor of Christian Ethics, Georgetown University, "Ethical Issues in Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research: An International Perspective"
- Alfonso Gomez-Lobo, Ryan Family Professor of Metaphysics an Moral Philosophy, Georgetown University and Member, President's Council on Bioethics, "Human Cloning and Human Dignity: An Ethical Inquiry"
- January 2003
- Jane Maienschein, Regents' Professor of Philosophy and Biology, Arizona State University, "Stem Cells, Cloning, and Embryos in the Public Eye"
- February 2003
- Daniel Kevles, Stanley Woodward Professor of History, Yale University, "Historical Perspectives on Eugenics, the Human Genome, and Stem Cell Research"