Founding director of the Science and Justice Research Center at UC Santa Cruz, Jenny Reardon, a leading voice in the field of genomics, was one of 15 participants invited to attend a workshop on personalized medicine hosted by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
The UC Santa Cruz campus article is available at: https://news.ucsc.edu/2019/05/reardon-vatican.html
Science & Justice Fellow Erica Zurawski (sociology) was interviewed by the Association for the Study of Food and Society.
Zurawski discusses her work in food justice and colonization, how her Juris Doctorate and yoga teaching informs her work and teaching, social media for academics, and the transdisciplinary programming at the UC Santa Cruz Science & Justice Research Center!
With colleagues at UC Davis, Sociology@UCSantaCruz Professor and SJRC Director Jenny Reardon with Feminist Studies Professor and SJRC Director of Teaching Karen Barad received a CITRIS grant to collect data on two graduate curriculums at UC Santa Cruz and UC Davis.
The Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) aims to leverage the interdisciplinary research strengths of multiple UC campuses to advance the University of California’s mission and the innovative spirit of California. The institute was created to shorten the pipeline between world-class laboratory research and the development of cutting-edge applications, platforms, companies, and even new industries.
More at:
UC Santa Cruz researchers win four CITRIS seed funding awards
This research is supported by a 2019 Seed Fund Award from CITRIS and the Banatao Institute at the University of California under “2019-0112: Comparative Analysis of Interdisciplinary Training for STEM Scholars”.
With his new book, Warren Sack provides an alternative history of software that places the liberal arts at the very center of software’s evolution. Sack invites artists and humanists to see how their ideas are at the root of software and invites computer scientists to envision themselves as artists and humanists.
The book is available at: https://mitpress.mit.edu/
The Software Arts (2019) by Warren Sack
Warren Sack is a media theorist, software designer, and artist whose work has been exhibited at SFMoMA, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Walker Art Center, and the ZKM Center for Art and Media. Warren is an affiliate of the Science & Justice Research Center, Chair and Professor of Film and Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
In The Software Arts, Warren Sack offers an alternative history of computing that places the arts at the very center of software’s evolution. Tracing the origins of software to eighteenth-century French encyclopedists’ step-by-step descriptions of how things were made in the workshops of artists and artisans, Sack shows that programming languages are the offspring of an effort to describe the mechanical arts in the language of the liberal arts.
Sack offers a reading of the texts of computing—code, algorithms, and technical papers—that emphasizes continuity between prose and programs. He translates concepts and categories from the liberal and mechanical arts—including logic, rhetoric, grammar, learning, algorithm, language, and simulation—into terms of computer science and then considers their further translation into popular culture, where they circulate as forms of digital life. He considers, among other topics, the “arithmetization” of knowledge that presaged digitization; today’s multitude of logics; the history of demonstration, from deduction to newer forms of persuasion; and the post-Chomsky absence of meaning in grammar. With The Software Arts, Sack invites artists and humanists to see how their ideas are at the root of software and invites computer scientists to envision themselves as artists and humanists.
“Warren Sack’s creative thinking across the arts and sciences has kept my cyborg on her toes, provoked again and again to test out how to reinvent practices for thinking, designing, working, and playing together for less deadly worlds. Sack’s historically attuned book investigates the folded zones linking the mechanical and liberal arts as new languages called programs have been built for emerging worlds. Rhetorics, epistemologies, and procedures are at stake in the digital media that shape and are shaped by the arts of computation. This is an important book about how things come to be in the workshops of the software arts that can never pretend to the separation of interpreting, making, and thinking.”
Donna Haraway, Distinguished Professor Emerita, University of California, Santa Cruz
The Sociology Department at UC Sant Cruz has announced that Professor Ben Crow, a longstanding faculty member and advisor to Science & Justice passed away on Tuesday April 9, 2019.
The Science & Justice Research Center is deeply saddened to lose such a gentle and thoughtful presence. He will be missed greatly.
More: https://sociology.ucsc.edu/news-events/news/crow-memorial.html
Film and Digital Media Alum and Science & Justice Fellow Elaine Gan, receives 2019 Distinguished Graduate Student Alumni Award
Of her experience at UC Santa Cruz’s cross-disciplinary approach, Gan says, “My studies were intense, particularly because they were so interdisciplinary”. “I studied alongside artists, filmmakers, theorists, anthropologists, historians, physicists, plant ecologists, marine biologists, and researchers from many disciplines.”
Gan teaches at New York University, Center for Experimental Humanities and Social Engagement (NYU Graduate School of Arts & Science), where she also leads the Multispecies Worldbuilding Lab. More on Gan’s work can be found at: http://elainegan.com/
More at: From scholarship to achievement, five grads make their mark
Book cover for Reporting Inequality Tools and Methods for Covering Race and Ethnicity (Routledge, 2019)
Under increasingly intense newsroom demands, reporters often find it difficult to cover the complexity of topics that deal with racial and social inequality. This path-breaking book lays out simple, effective reporting strategies that equip journalists to investigate disparity’s root causes.
Chapters discuss how racially disparate outcomes in health, education, wealth/income, housing, and the criminal justice system are often the result of inequity in opportunity and also provide theoretical frameworks for understanding the roots of racial inequity. Examples of model reporting from ProPublica, the Center for Public Integrity, and the San Jose Mercury News showcase best practice in writing while emphasizing community-based reporting. Throughout the book, tools and practical techniques such as the Fault Lines framework, the Listening Post and the authors’ Opportunity Index and Upstream-Downstream Framework all help journalists improve their awareness and coverage of structural inequity at a practical level.
For students and journalists alike, Reporting Inequality is an ideal resource for understanding how to cover structures of injustice with balance and precision.
The book is available at: https://www.routledge.com/Reporting-Inequality-Tools-and-Methods-for-Covering-Race-and-Ethnicity/Lehrman-Wagner/p/book/9781138849884
Sally Lehrman is an award-winning reporter on medicine and science policy with an emphasis on race, gender and social diversity. Her byline credits include Scientific American, Nature, Health, the Boston Globe, the New York Times, Salon.com and The DNA Files, three public radio series distributed by NPR. Honors include a Peabody Award, a duPont-Columbia Award, and the JSK Fellowship at Stanford University. She started and leads the Trust Project, a global network of newsrooms that is addressing the misinformation crisis through transparency. Sally is an affiliate of the Science & Justice Research Center.
Venise Wagner is a professor of journalism at San Francisco State University, where she has taught since 2001. She has a 12-year career as a reporter for several California dailies, including the Orange County Register, the San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle. She has covered border issues, religion and ethics, schools and education, urban issues and issues in the San Francisco Bay Area’s various black communities.
The Sociological Review, the oldest sociology journal in the UK, launches podcast by interviewing Professor and Center Director Jenny Reardon on her ‘What’s the matter with Kansas’ tour. Hear more about the current concerns surrounding Kansas land at: https://www.thesociologicalreview.com/the-undisciplining-sessions-episode-1-cycling-through-kansas-in-a-time-of-trump/
The Undisciplining Sessions – Episode 1: Cycling through Kansas in a time of Trump
On April 11th, Tiffany Wise-West, Science & Justice Training Program Fellow participated in the 6th Annual Climate Science Conference hosted by UC Santa Cruz held at the Rio Theatre.
The conference, Climate Justice: Linking Science to Just Action brought together diverse perspectives and offered insight into connecting the best science to actions that will help all communities respond to changes in climate.
The recording can be found at: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/121355342
Tiffany Wise-West is the sustainability and climate action manager for the City of Santa Cruz Climate Action Program. Wise-West received a PhD in Environmental Studies at UC Santa Cruz.
Refer also to:
Wise-West’s 2010 Training Program project on Climate Cluster I: Thinking Through the Technical Fix
ALL DAY – ONLINE
Join the Science and Justice Research Center at UC Santa Cruz on Wednesday February 27, for Giving Day—a 24-hour online fundraising drive!
Please help us support our student researchers through the Science & Justice campaign. Incentives to give include matching funds: if you are interested in matching funds for specific projects, please email scijust@ucsc.edu.
Why Support S&J?
Your support creates a vibrant future for science and justice student researchers. Together we will bolster training and research experiences and grow SJRC’s ability to make a difference in these crucial issues that lie at the intersection of science, the environment, health, and justice.
Share our Campaign for Justice!
Post our campaign on social media and tell your friends to join us on February 27.
Thank you for making a more just world possible!
Visit our Giving Day project campaign to learn more!
When to Donate?
Challenges throughout the day reward teams attracting the greatest number of donors during specific times, consider donating during the “Mad Dash” from 6:00pm – 8:00pm.
| Challenge | Time | 1st Place | 2nd Place | 3rd Place |
| Night Owl | 12 – 1:00am | $1,000 | ||
| Early Riser | 7 – 8:00am | $1,000 | ||
| Espresso Express | 9 – 9:30am | $1,000 | ||
| Morning Madness | 10 – 11:00am | $1,000 | ||
| Midday Motivator | 12 – 2:00pm | $2,500 | ||
| Happy Hour | 3 – 4:00pm | $1,000 | ||
| Mad Dash | 6 – 8:00pm | $5,000 | $2,500 | $1,000 |
| Final Frenzy | All Day | $10,000 | $5,000 | $2,500 |
The minimum amount to donate online is $10. Campus events including accepting cash donations, of any amount, a photobooth, and pizza will be on offer on in Quarry Plaza.