I can only thank Ken for compiling this fine list.
I would just add a small suggestion : if your university library holds a large (if not complete!) collection of the « Leonardo » Journal (lucky you), it is worth browsing through them. I haven’t done that for a while, so I can’t recommend any specific paper, but what I have always found nice was to see how the framing of the same question evolved over 40 years.
http://www.leonardo.info/leoinfo.html
Best regards,
Jean
> Le 30 juil. 2015 à 23:17, Ken Friedman <[log in to unmask]> a écrit :
>
> Friends,
>
> Here is a useful reading list for those who want to understand the two (or three) cultures — the natural and social sciences, the humanities, and the fine arts. It is better to hear the voices of people from within these cultures than it is to assume that we understand the way that these cultures operate or how they shape the lives and work of those who think within them. There are common points — and there are significant differences. Designers who hope to bridge these cultures should know something of how the natives of these different cultures see and feel about themselves.
>
> This is my selection. Others might select other works. This is certainly the case for list members who genuinely work within another culture as well as working in design. If I were to develop a seminar course, these are the books I’d use. For a 12-week graduate-level seminar, I’d choose selected readings from some books. I'd assign four books in full, two long ones (Nye and Monroe) and two short ones (Snow and Geertz).
>
> If you are reading this material yourself for a program of personal development, I’d suggest reading all the books. It will take longer to read all of these books, but it is worth the investment of time. This kind of reading list will show you how to understand how people think in the cultures of the several disciplines.
>
> For a seminar, I’d suggest this order. Snow and Geertz are short books, easily read in an afternoon. Nye’s book is long, so I’d suggest reading it before the seminar begins. :
>
> Snow. 2012 (1959). The Two Cultures. [Full book.]
> Nye. 2015. Michael Polanyi. [Full book.]
> Shattuck. 1955. The Banquet Years. [Selected material.]
> Lightman. 1996. Dance for Two. [Selected material.]
> Dworkin. 2015. No Media. [Selected material.]
> Einstein. 2005. Einstein’s Miraculous Year. [Selected material.]
> Geertz. 1988. Works and Lives. [Full book.]
> Geertz. 1973. “Thick Description.” [First chapter in Interpretation of Cultures, pp. 3-30.]
> Huffington. 1988. Picasso. Creator and Destroyer. [Selected material.]
> Rasula. 2015. Destruction Was My Beatrice. [Selected material.]
> Monroe. 2002. Writing and Revising the Disciplines. [Full book.]
>
> The list below is structured by themes and topics.
>
> Warm wishes,
>
> Ken
>
> —
>
> Reading Across Cultures: A Compendium
>
> 1) C P Snow
>
> [1] If you have not read C.P. Snow’s Rede Lecture of 1959 for yourself, you should. This is the famous “two cultures” lecture. Cambridge University Press has an excellent paperback edition with a fine introduction by Stefan Collini, Professor of English Literature and Intellectual History at Cambridge University. In addition to the 1959 lecture, this edition includes an important second text by Snow, written four years after the Rede Lecture — “The Two Cultures — a Second Look.” Snow himself had a foot in both cultures — trained as a scientist with a PhD in infra-red spectroscopy, he later became a civil servant and advisor to industry, then a successful novelist. He is just critical of literary intellectuals and humanists who know nothing of science as he is of scientists who know little of literature and art. This is a judicious and balanced lecture. I don’t think that most artists actually cross the divide, despite John Maeda’s optimistic view. For that matter, the same holds true of many designers, at least those who lack the broad background required to earn a bachelor’s degree in North American universities with a general education requirement or an MFA or PhD with breadth requirements.
>
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Two-Cultures-Canto-Classics/dp/1107606144/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1438244863&sr=1-1&keywords=c+p+snow
>
> 2) The Culture of Art
>
> [2] An artist’s job requires stirring the pot of culture. Roger Shattuck’s (1955) book The Banquet Years offer a wonderful picture of a key moment when the pot boiled. It was the era between 1885 and World War 1, and this charming book brings the moment to life in richly detailed description. It also shows how artists can manage to ask the big questions, inspiring the rest of us without producing useful results. Alfred Jarry and Henri Rousseau certainly asked big questions. The answers they provide shed light — what that light means and what it can do remain as puzzling today as they are illuminating:
>
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Banquet-Years-Origins-Avant-France/dp/0394704150/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1438243425&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Banquet+Years
>
> [3] Jed Rasula’s (2015) book Destruction Was My Beatrice examines Dada and its effects on the rest of the century. I’ve just got my copy of this book, so I can’t speak to its virtues or problems. It seems to me a solid attempt to describe a key moment in modern culture:
>
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Destruction-Was-Beatrice-Jed-Rasula/dp/0465089968/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1438243500&sr=1-1&keywords=Jed+Rasula
>
> [4] A new book by Craig Dworkin (2015) examines some of the issues in the art of the past few decades. I was fascinated by Dworkin’s elegant essay on an art work that I made in 1966. On pp. 131-138, he discusses my Zen for Record. To me, this fluent essay beautifully examines the nature of what it is that works of art can do, with the generative ambiguity they entail and the constantly fluid capacity of a work of art to generate new meanings. Art operate along a hermeneutical horizon — well, science does too, but for the work of art, the constant change and development of cultures, receivers, and even the artist create a way of speaking, understanding, and engagement quite different to that of science.
>
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/No-Medium-Craig-Dworkin/dp/0262527553/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1438243641&sr=1-1&keywords=Craig+Dworkin
>
> [5] Ariana Huffington’s (1988) Picasso: Creator and Destroyer examines the life, work, and thinking of a great 20th century artist. Picasso was a member of the supporting cast during The Banquet Years — present like the sun in a book on the planets of the solar system. Huffington’s book focuses on Picasso himself. It was highly controversial when it was published because it attempted to offer a picture of the man in full, a situation that plagued his biographers and admirers. As I recall the controversy, no one said that Huffington was wrong in he research or the facts she brought forward — the complaint, rather, was that she was rude and far too blunt. I think it a wonderful book in its
>
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Picasso-Creator-Destroyer-Arianna-Huffington/dp/0671454463/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1438247481&sr=1-1&keywords=picasso+creator+and+destroyer
>
> 3) Science
>
> [6] What is science? What do scientists think about? How do they ask questions? This is a big issue, and this book sheds light on the virtues — and the limits — of the brief question as John Maeda put it in Birger’s post. Mary Jo Nye (2015), professor emerita of history at the University of Oregon, examines some of these issues — and the people who think about them — in a fascinating book on the great Michael Polanyi. Polanyi was a distinguished working scientist, a physical chemist who also made major contributions to economics and philosophy. The high level of Polanyi’s work is well known — some believe that he should have won a Nobel Prize for his work, with one nomination in physics and two in chemistry. (Two of his students did win the prize, as did his son.) Nye’s book offers a range of useful considerations on science and scientists, summarising some of the key debates of the past century in the process.
>
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-Polanyi-His-Generation-Construction/dp/0226610632/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1438248768&sr=1-5&keywords=Mary+Jo+Nye
>
> [7] While Alan Lightman was trained as a physicist, he became a novelist and essayist, thinking about science from both cultures. Lightman’s (1996) book of essays, Dance for Two offers beautifully pointed reflections on all these issues.
>
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dance-Two-Selected-Bloomsbury-paperbacks/dp/0747529213/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1438251092&sr=1-3
>
> [8] Albert Einstein is one of the greatest scientists in human history. This book shows Einstein’s mind at work in 1905, the year that changed physics. The book reprints Einstein's great papers of 1905, together with concise essays introducing the concepts and meaning of each paper by John Stachel (2005). This allows those of us who are not scientists to get an idea of how a great scientist thinks.
>
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Einsteins-Miraculous-Year-Changed-Physics/dp/0691122288/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1438251313&sr=8-1&keywords=einstein%27s+miraculous+year
>
> 4) Habits of Mind
>
> The thread on “two cultures” has to do with the working cultures of the disciplines and the habits of mind that animate them. These three books offer a survey of how different leading thinkers have worked and thought in two fields, history and anthropology, and a view of the ways in which people think and write from a spectrum of disciplines
>
> [9] Gordon Wood’s (2008) Purpose of the Past: Reflection on the Uses of History shows some of the very different ways that different scholars in a single discipline may think about their field. This book presents a collection of book reviews by a distinguished historian reflecting on the way that other historians and writers consider and discuss the past.
>
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Purpose-Past-Reflections-Uses-History/dp/0143115049/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1438246964&sr=1-1&keywords=gordon+wood+uses+of+history
>
> [10] Clifford Geertz’s (1989) Works and Lives demonstrates a multiplicity of ways to do anthropology, and it shows how different great anthropologists conceived and developed their field through writing.
>
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Works-Lives-Anthropologist-as-Author/dp/0745607594/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1438251597&sr=8-1&keywords=works+and+lives+geertz
>
> See also Geertz’s classic article, “Thick Description,” from his 1973 book, The Interpretation of Cultures, pp. 3-30. If you buy the book, get the Basic Books edition — the Fontana edition is badly printed and hard to read.
>
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Local-Knowledge-Clifford-Geertz/dp/0006862640/ref=pd_sim_14_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=1DVN56QYC4MDM1FQAE06
>
> [11] Jonathan Monroe's (2002) anthology offers a look at how people write (and think) in physics, chemistry, science and technology studies; politics, sociology, law; criticism, history, and the humanities. This offers an excellent overview to anyone who hopes to learn more about bridging the cultures of the disciplines.
>
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Writing-Revising-Disciplines-Jonathan-Monroe/dp/080148751X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1438251650&sr=8-2&keywords=writing+and+revising+the+disciplines
>
> --
>
> Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Elsevier in Cooperation with Tongji University | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/
>
> Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| University Distinguished Professor | Centre for Design Innovation | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia
>
>
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