Michaelmas Term 2018 - AI Narratives

This term the Science and Literature Reading Group joins forces with the AI Narratives research programme from the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence.

All are welcome to join in our wide-ranging and friendly discussions: full details of meeting times and location will be available soon. The group is organised by Kanta Dihal and Melanie Keene.

For recaps, further readings, news, and other updates, please follow us on Twitter @scilitreadgrp or visit our blog.

Readings will include:

• Alan Turing, ‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence’ (1950)
• Nnedi Okorafor, ‘Mother of Invention’ (2018)
• Isaac Asimov, ‘Sally’ (1953)
• ‘Robots of Brixton’ (2011)

Easter Term 2018 - Aether (take 2)

The Science and Literature Reading Group will hold two sessions which were postponed from last term due to industrial action. We first complete our explorations of the aether by looking at the theme of communication, across and beyond the globe. We will then celebrate the end of our elements series with a found poetry workshop using all of the texts we have read and discussed over the previous two academic years.

All are welcome to join in our wide-ranging and friendly conversations, which take place in the Newnham Grange Seminar Room at Darwin College on selected Monday evenings from 7.30–9pm. The group is organised by Melanie Keene and Charissa Varma.

For recaps, further readings, news, and other updates, please follow us on Twitter @scilitreadgrp or check this blog.

14th May – Communication

• Rudyard Kipling, ‘Wireless’ (1902)
• Philip R. Coursey, ‘Interplanetary Wireless?’, Wireless World (1920) 
• Eric Roach, ‘Beyond’ (1950)

 

4th June – End of year party and Elementary Poetry workshop

• Online introduction to found poetry, and examples

Lent Term 2018 - Aether

Following our tour of the four classical elements, this term the Science and Literature Reading Group looks to the fifth: aether. Our first three meetings focus on ways in which ethereal concepts have been used: as a vehicle for the imagination; as a medium for interconnection; and as a means of communication. The final meeting will celebrate completing the elementary series with a found poetry workshop using all of the texts we have read and discussed over the past year.

All are welcome to join in our wide-ranging and friendly conversations, which take place at Darwin College on selected Monday evenings from 7.30–9pm. The group is organised by Melanie Keene and Charissa Varma.

For recaps, further readings, news, and other updates, please follow us on Twitter @scilitreadgrp or follow this blog.

22nd January – Imagination

• Anna Laetitia Barbauld, ‘A Summer Evening’s Meditation’, (1773).
• John Tyndall, The Scientific Use of the Imagination (1870).

5th February – Connection

• John Davidson, ‘Fleet Street’ (1909).
• Oliver Lodge, Ether and Reality (1925), ch. 2, ‘Fundamental notions about an ether’, 33-46.

26th February – Communication

• Rudyard Kipling, ‘Wireless’ (1902).
• Philip R. Coursey, ‘Interplanetary Wireless?’, Wireless World (1920).
• Eric Roach, ‘Beyond’ (1950).

12th March – Elementary Poetry workshop

• Online introduction to found poetry, and examples.

Wells at the Whipple

Festival of Ideas: Space Oddities

5pm - 8pm, Friday 21st October. Drop in, 15+.

Before Virgin Galactic, before the Space Race, even before the Wright Brothers' first flight, the human imagination was sending astronauts to the Moon. Explore early manifestations of space travel in film, radio, fiction and popular culture. Robert Lloyd Parry will be reading from Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon and H G Wells' The First Men in the Moon, we'll be showing George Melies' Le Voyage dans la Lune, playing Buck Rogers radio shows and demonstrating objects that depict early theme park ride 'A Trip to the Moon'.

H.G. Wells readings

12pm - 1pm, Fridays in November. Ticketed, ages 16+, free.

Robert Lloyd Parry specialises in retelling the classic tales of the late 19th century, works by the likes of M R James, Arthur Conan Doyle, and - in this the 150th anniversary of his birth - H G Wells. Four of his best short 'scientific romances' will be read in the eminently atmospheric surrounding of the Whipple Museum of the History of Science.

Friday 4th November - The Crystal Egg

Friday 11th November - The Remarkable Case of Davidson's Eyes

Friday 18th November - The New Accelerator

Friday 25th November - The Sea Raiders

Attendance is free but must be booked by emailing hps-events@lists.cam.ac.uk