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We are all concerned by the environmental threats facing us today. Environmental issues are a major area of concern for policy makers, industrialists and public groups of many different kinds. While science seems central to our understanding of such threats, the statements of scientists are increasingly open to challenge in this area. Meanwhile, citizens may find themselves labelled as `ignorant' in environmental matters. In Citizen Science Alan Irwin provides a much needed route through the fraught relationship between science, the public and the environmental threat.
Often typecast as a menacing figure, Peter Lorre achieved Hollywood fame first as a featured player and later as a character actor, trademarking his screen performances with a delicately strung balance between good and evil. His portrayal of the child murderer in Fritz Lang’s masterpiece M (1931) catapulted him to international fame. Lang said of Lorre: “He gave one of the best performances in film history and certainly the best in his life.” Today, the Hungarian-born actor is also recognized for his riveting performances in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The Maltese Falcon (1941), and Casablanca (1942). Lorre arrived in America in 1934 expecting to shed his screen image as a villai...
Misunderstanding Science? offers a challenging new perspective on the public understanding of science. In so doing, it challenges existing ideas of the nature of science and its relationships with society. Its analysis and case presentation are highly relevant to current concerns over the uptake, authority and effectiveness of science as expressed, for example, in areas such as education, medical/health practice, risk and the environment, and technological innovation. Based on several in-depth case studies, and informed theoretically by the sociology of scientific knowledge, the book shows how the public understanding of science raises questions about the epistemic commitments and institutional structures that constitute modern science. These key aspects are usually ignored in standard treatments of the subject. The book suggests that many of the inadequacies in the social integration and support of science might be overcome if modern scientific institutions were more reflexive and open about the implicit normative commitments embedded in scientific cultures.
In 1969 curator, critic and former Jewish Museum director Alan Solomon interviewed Craig Kauffman, Larry Bell, James Turrell and Robert Irwin in conjunction with an exhibition he was organizing. They are the earliest in-depth interviews with each artist. Because of his untimely death they have remained in his archives and are published here for the first time. The interviews provide a rare glimpse into the early careers of these seminal artists, documenting their critical, aesthetic and intellectual concerns at a pivotal moment, allowing readers new insight into an important era of American postwar art. Solomon rose to prominence in the 1960s as a curator at the Jewish Museum in New York, wh...
Before establishing himself as the "master of disaster" with the 1970s films The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, Irwin Allen created four of television's most exciting and enduring science-fiction series: Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants. These 1960s series were full of Allen's favorite tricks, techniques and characteristic touches, and influenced other productions from the original Star Trek forward. Every science-fiction show owes something to Allen, yet none has equaled his series' pace, excitement, or originality. This detailed examination and documentation of the premise and origin of the four shows offers an objective evaluation of every episode--and demonstrates that when Irwin Allen's television episodes were good, they were great, and when they were bad, they were still terrific fun.
Can sociology help us to tackle environmental problems? What can sociology tell us about the nature of the environment and about the origins and consequences of environmental risks, hazards and change? In this important new book Alan Irwin maps out this emerging field of knowledge, teaching and research. He reviews the key sociological debates in the field and sets out a new framework for analysis and practice. Among the themes examined are constructivism and realism, sustainable development and theories of the risk society. Readers are also introduced to communities at risk, institutional regulation and the environmental consequences of technology. Particular topics for discussion include g...
Annotation Explores the contributions and challenges presented when scientific authority enters the realm of environmental affairs. Practical examples and case studies illustrate that science must be relevant, credible, and democratic.
This volume introduces the notion of ‘relational planning’ through a collection of theoretical and empirical contributions that explore the making of heterogeneous associations in the planning practice. The analytical concept builds on recent approaches to complexity and materiality in planning theory by drawing on Science and Technology Studies (STS) of urban issues. It frames planning as a socio-material practice taking place within the multifaceted relations between artefacts, agency and practices. By way of this triad, spatial planning is not studied as a given, linear or technical process but rather problematized as a hybrid, distributed and situational practice. The inquiries in th...
Shows the risks of high-tech pollution through a study of an IBM plant's effects on a New York town In 1924, IBM built its first plant in Endicott, New York. Now, Endicott is a contested toxic waste site. With its landscape thoroughly contaminated by carcinogens, Endicott is the subject of one of the nation’s largest corporate-state mitigation efforts. Yet despite the efforts of IBM and the U.S. government, Endicott residents remain skeptical that the mitigation systems employed were designed with their best interests at heart. In Toxic Town, Peter C. Little tracks and critically diagnoses the experiences of Endicott residents as they learn to live with high-tech pollution, community trans...