Increasingly, developments in science, technology, medicine, and the environment have global implications. Northwestern University’s Science in Human Culture (SHC) Program addresses these issues and fosters meaningful conversations at the intersection of the humanities and sciences.
Starting this Fall, SHC will partner with the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity (CRE2) at Washington University in St. Louis to co-sponsor a series of research exchanges, public panels, and scholarly presentations that focus on the intersections of race, science, and medicine.SCH is excited about this new partnership in which the institutions will plan year-long activities.
“We’ve always been interested in real-world dimensions of scientific study. This partnership will allow our students and faculty to explore the ways in which scientific research on race is produce in universities, journals, genetic testing, and social media, domains that ultimately have a powerful impact on the public’s understanding of scientific discourse and practice,” said Paul Ramírez, Director of the SCH Program and Professor of History and Religious Studies.
The series mirrors the goals of their undergraduate program offered by SHC. SHC’s goals focus on fostering interdisciplinary scientific literacy; making sense of the constantly changing world of science, medicine, and technology; encouraging a deeper understanding of the uneven impact of different expert fields over time and across place; situating scientific reasoning and results in their wider historical, philosophical, sociological, cultural, and political contexts.
Through the SHC’s new partnership with CRE2, members of both institutions will have opportunities to participate in events in the series that explore questions surrounding the production of scientific knowledge across the Americas, including institutional barriers, “gatekeeping,” and the construction of expertise; genomics, genetics, and understandings of race; and the roles of science in society in the present and past.
The partnership commences with an inaugural virtual panel titled, “Gatekeeping & the Publishing Landscape for Scholarship on Race, Medicine & Science.” Participants will explore how publication trends and directions for race-focused work in areas of science and medical research have been shaped by public conversations, the makeup of editorial boards, and field-specific debates themselves, among other sources of influence and power structures.
More about the Science in Human Culture (SHC) Program at Northwestern
SHC provides students and faculty an opportunity to bridge the worlds of scientific expertise and culture and develop the critical tools needed to understand the effects of these systems around the world.
SHC is ideal for pre-medical students who want to understand the implications of medical practice, the ethical dilemmas faced by physicians, and the social and economic pressures confronting medicine. SHC also welcomes students majoring in the social sciences who are interested in public health, environmental change, or technology policy, and who understand that these problems beg for interdisciplinary thinking. SHC can also be excellent preparation for students planning to enter graduate school in history, philosophy, sociology, or anthropology. SHC can be a valuable tool for engineers or scientists who want to see how their chosen disciplines have shaped—and been shaped by—the wider world.
Learn more about the partnership and upcoming activities here.