Science and Society Undergraduate Research Symposium: fractured natures: disrupting the divides between 'Science' and 'Society'

Scientific work is often understood to be something separate from social, artistic, or cultural influence. Increasingly, interdisciplinary inquiry pushes us to reconsider these perceived divisions. The 2014 Science & Society Undergraduate Research Symposium focuses on the social, the political, and the "scientific" (medical, technological, and beyond), proposing that these disciplinary boundaries are not so easy to identify and distinguish in the first place. When we fracture natures, we break open conceptions of "science" and "society" in order to consider who and what is at stake within scientific discoveries, histories, and discourses.
The event will feature undergraduate work from a variety of academic concentrations. In exploring the fractured and splintered spaces within and between "science" and "society" we might imagine new futures and possibilities for these categories in and of themselves.
Keynote Speaker: Harlan Weaver, National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Scholar at the Science, Technology, and Society Center at UC Berkeley.