SEMINAR 6 - Responsible Science: Shakespeare and Bacon

SHAKESPEARE’S THE TEMPEST AND BACON’S NEW ATLANTIS: A COLLABORATIVE REFLECTION ON ‘RESPONSIBLE SCIENCE’.

Academic year:

2018/19

Seminar n°:

6 (Week 2)

Teachers:

Fátima VIEIRA

University:

Universidade do Porto

Seminar presentation:

One of the European Commission’s priorities for the Horizon 2020 programme is the so-called “responsible research and innovation”, defined on the EU’s website as “an approach that anticipates and assesses potential implications and societal expectations with regard to research and innovation, with the aim to foster the design of inclusive and sustainable research and innovation” (https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/en/h2020-section/responsible-research-innovation).

This seminar aims to contribute to the current debate on the need for ‘responsible science’ by proposing a discussion on the interplay between politics and science in The Tempest and New Atlantis. The three sessions will be structured around three main questions which are to unfold into subsequent inquiries into the two texts: 1) how do The Tempest and New Atlantis represent the ‘scientific revolution’ that was taking place in the early 17^th century, when magic, religion and science were beginning to separate?; 2) how do the authors represent the political and ethical dimensions of science, and of its (mis)uses?; 3) how do science and utopia relate to one another in the texts?

NFsem6_Vieira

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