Science as Culture

26 Freegrove Road, London N7 9RQ, England
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Editor: Robert M. Young

Managing Editor: Les Levidow

Our culture is a scientific one, defining what is natural and what is rational. Its values can be seen in what are sought out as facts and made as artefacts, what are designed as processes and products, and what are forged as weapons and filmed as wonders. In our daily experience, power is exercised through expertise, e.g. in science, technology and medicine. Science as Culture explores how all these shape the values which contend for influence over the wider society.

Science mediates our cultural experience. It increasingly defines what it is to be a person, through genetics, medicine and information technology. Its values get embodied and naturalized in concepts, techniques, research priorities, gadgets and advertising. Many films, works of art and novels express popular concerns about these developments.

In a society where icons of progress are drawn from science, technology and medicine, they are either celebrated or demonized. Often their progress is feared as 'unnatural', while their critics are labelled 'irrational'. Public concerns are rebuffed by ostensibly value-neutral experts and positivist polemics.

Yet the culture of science is open to study like any other culture. Cultural studies analyses the role of expertise throughout society. Many journals address the history, philosophy and social studies of science, its popularisation, and the public understanding of science. However, amidst these journals, Science as Culture is 'the only source of critique of the way science is going', as one reader put it.

Science as Culture analyses the underlying frameworks, assumptions and terms of reference of expertise. It emphasises the fundamental role of values, interests, ideology and purposes which would otherwise remain hidden in the guise of neutrality and objectivity. Science as Culture is an interdisciplinary journal placing science within the wider debate on the values which constitute culture. Above all, it encompasses people's experiences — whether in the workplace, at the cinema, computer or hospital, in the home or at the academy.

Contributors have included:Vincent Mosco, Donna Haraway, Richard Barbrook, Langdon Winner, Michael Chanan, Sarah Franklin, Michael Shortland.Steve Best & Douglas Kellner. Roger Smith, Mary Mellor, Scott L. Montgomery, Roger Silverstone, Bruce Berman, Ashis Nandy, Jack Kloppenburg, Jr, Les Levidow, Christopher Hamlin, Philip

Garrahan & Paul Stewart, Maureen McNeil, Barbara Duden, Andrew Ross, Dennis Hayes, Kevin Robins & Frank Webster, David Pingitore, Jon Turney, Stephen Hill & Tim Turpin, Chunglin Kwa, Joel Kovel, David Hakken, Robert M. Young.

Comments:

'In recent times, the social effects of scientific discoveries and inventions have been so earth shaking that a large number of journals has arisen, occupied by the social consequences of the natural sciences. Among the very best of these journals, in my opinion, is Science as Culture. It has all my considered blessings.'

The late Joseph Needham (Historian)

'For anyone involved with the social consequences of the natural sciences, this is a must.'

Library journal

'Science as Culture has a unique commitment to examine cultural productions, power imagination and science in a readable and engaging manner'

Donna Haraway

FORTHCOMING ARTICLES

Elizabeth Britt, ’Infertility as a Medical Problem: recasting feminist accounts of nature and science’

David Matthews, ’Diabetes Care and Biomedical Control’

David Pingitore, ’Leveraging our Souls: psychology in the era of health-care reform’

Laurie Anne Whitt, ’Bio-colonialism and the Commodification of Knowledge’

Peter Taylor, ’Natural Selection: a heavy hand in biological and social thought’

CONTRIBUTIONS

Contributions to the journal are welcome. Please send 3 copies of your manuscript to: Les Levidow, Managing Editor, Science as Culture, 26 Freegrove Road, London N7 9RQ, UK.
Tel: +44(0)171 609 0507. Fax: +44(0)171 6094837.
email pp@rmy1.demon.co.uk

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The Human Nature Review © Ian Pitchford and Robert M. Young - Last updated: 28 May, 2005 02:29 PM