The Interdisciplinary Committee on Science Studies invites applications from recently tenured-faculty and CUNY doctoral students who would like to participate in a research seminar on the theme of Embodiment.

Traditions of Science Studies have long provided a charter for interdisciplinary conversations about embodiment. We hope that this seminar will achieve a central goal of the Science Studies Committee by fostering critical friendships among scientists and humanists. Literary theory has long been exploring embodiment. Feminist theory, gender studies, queer theory, affect theory, and even earlier, prosodists analyzing sound and sense all concerned with the centrality of embodied forms of knowing and expression forecast current interest. Bringing insights from these fields in the humanities, into conversation with cutting-edge research from the sciences, promises to transform our understandings about embodiment. For example:

* In microbiology, findings about the exchange of genetic material across biological kingdoms, and about microorganisms living in and upon our bodies, have led scholars of science and society to conclude that “human nature is an interspecies relationship.”

* In computer science, there has been a turn from simulated intelligence to the construction of robots that interact with real environments. Classic studies of informatics and surveillance by social scientists including work on cyborgs and disembodied social network Technologies have given way to research on mechanical artificial agents. As robots are entering the arena of global war, and embodying the tactics of swarming, ethnographers of science are beginning to probe new ethical and biopolitical terrain.

* In neuroscience, there has been intense interest in the ways that perception and motor systems interact. Some have claimed that the sharp division between inputs and outputs is biologically untenable. Scholars of science and society, working in the ‘age of the brain’, have traced how neuroscientific knowledge and imagery is used to interpret and alter the body torquing personal identity, gender, sexuality, and making new “kinds” of people.

* In psychology, some researchers who study development argue that a child’s physical position influences performance on cognitive skill acquisition, such as object constancy. Cognitive psychologists have explored the role of motor skills in sentence processing. Feminist analyses of psychology have long investigated the construal of women’s bodies as hysterical, children’s bodies as malleable, and sexual variation as medical or perverse. Bringing together psychological insiders, and critical outsiders, promises to generate productive friction.

* In evolutionary biology, some researchers have investigated the impact of embodied emotions on the evolution of social cognition. Probing the assumptions underlying evolutionary explanation, queer theorists have applied insights from the cultural construction of gender and sexuality to understand sexual variation in other species, and challenge prevailing evolutionary models, such as sexual selection.

The Committee on Science Studies is eager to identify scholars who might generate critical crosstalk on such themes. Seminar participants will be able to exchange ideas, share work in progress, and forge professional ties across disciplinary lines that rarely get crossed.

ELIGIBILITY AND REQUIREMENTS

Applications are invited from students of the humanities and humanistic social sciences such as anthropology, religion, sociology, philosophy, political science, history, English, art history, and comparative literature who engage and transect our seminar topic. THIS FELLOWSHIP IS OPEN ONLY TO CUNY GRADUATE CENTER DOCTORAL STUDENTS AND YOU MUST BE LEVEL III BY MAY 2011. THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS.

With generous support from the Mellon Foundation and the Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor, successful candidates will be granted $10,000 for the Fall 2011-Spring 2012 academic year in return for a commitment to fully participate in the work of the Committee and in the weekly seminar. The basis for selection of participants will rest primarily on the relevance to the overall project of the work proposal submitted by applicants. In accord with the interdisciplinary aim of the program, selections will also be made with an eye to maintaining disciplinary diversity.

A completed Graduate Fellow Application comprises five parts:

1) Completed application form (attached)

2) 150 word abstract of project description

3) Project description (maximum 750 words about your dissertation and other related, relevant research interests)

4) a current short CV (maximum 5 pages)

5) a 250 word letter of reference from your advisor (can be e-mailed to the appropriate committee, but hard copy strongly recommended).

You must submit both paper and electronic applications. Send a PDF of your complete application to the appropriate committee e-mail, listed below. Also send an original PLUS five HARD copies of your completed application to:

Padmini Biswas, Assistant Director

The Committee on Science Studies

CUNY Graduate Center Room 5109

365 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10016

Inquiries should be directed to sciencestudies@gc.cuny.edu

SCIENCESTUDIES.GC.CUNY.EDU