Science, the Arts, & the Humanities

The Initiative for Science Literacy helps people explore, discuss, and cultivate the intellectual and emotional links between science, the arts, and the humanities. People can value, appreciate, and enjoy science without a deep understanding of specific details, just as they can appreciate music without a specialized knowledge of music theory, or appreciate literature, the theater, and the visual arts without being experts in those fields. Programs of the Initiative focus on the relationships, similarities, and differences in inquiry, creativity, and personal expression among scientists, artists, and humanists.

 

Public Presentations

Click here for a list of upcoming and past events in the arts and humanities that relate to science literacy.

Perpetual Motion
Revolutions in 17th-Century Science and Music

A multimedia performance that blends past, present, and future
Dava Sobel storyteller (author of Longitude, Galileo's Daughter and The Planets)
with Galileo's Daughters:
       Sarah Pillow - soprano
       Mary Anne Ballard - viola da gamba
       with
       Ronn McFarlane - lute
as Vincenzio Galilei

Oxygen Symposium

Do we fully understand oxygen, or is there more to learn about this vital and fascinating element? The Oxygen Symposium was given in March of 2003 at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Click on the link above for an overview of the program as well as other related links.
Oxygen DVD

Who discovered oxygen? Priestley? Lavoisier? Scheele?

This play, written by renowned chemists Carl Djerassi of Stanford University and Nobel Laureate Roald Hoffmann of Cornell University, tells the story of a fictitious modern day Nobel panel's attempt to determine who discovered oxygen. The story is told in a series of flashbacks to the 18th century lives of Joseph Priestley, Antoine Lavoisier, and Karl Wilhelm Scheele and presents three experiments, one reflecting the work of each scientist.

This is the official, professionally recorded version from a theater production at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and includes personal interviews with the authors and director.