The Intersection of Science & the Humanities

Shimer College is pleased to announce that faculty members Jim Donovan and Eileen Buchanan were recently published in Substance, Judgement, and Evaluation: Seeking the Worth of a Liberal Arts Core Text Education, a compilation of selected papers from the Twelfth Annual Conference of the Association for Core Texts and Courses (ACTC).

Jim’s paper, “Teaching Scientists to See: A Possible Bridge Between C.P. Snow’s Two Cultures,” directly addresses the issues in integrating such very distinct subjects as science and the visual arts. “It’s about teaching the visual arts to science students and getting words and pictures working together,” says Jim.

In “Michelangelo and the Copernican Revolution,” Eileen concentrates on combining science, writing and art to create a cohesive history for students. “The thesis I was trying to work with was that what people produce visually -- whether it be a pot, tapestry, painting, or graph -- shows who they are and what is important to them,” Buchanan said. “There are certain intellectual currents going on and they affect us even when we don’t know they’re going on.”

Both faculty members spoke of a long-term interest and research in the topic, and of the thought that goes into writing the papers for the conference. Buchanan remarked, “I think it reminds you of what you’re asking your students to do.”
Jim and Eileen’s articles share the Shimer view that the factually ordered world of science and math not only coexist, but must merge with the often imaginary, theoretical world of philosophy and art. “The conventional academic setting is departmentally orientated,” Dean David Shiner commented. “Here, it’s about interdisciplinary education. For us, that’s just habit, but for others, it’s unknown and impressive.”