Poetry and Neuroscience: : An Interdisciplinary Conversation.

James Wilkes,Sophie K Scott

doi:10.1353/con.2016.0021

Abstract

ABSTRACT Dialogues and collaborations between scientists and non-scientists are now widely understood as important elements of scientific research and public engagement with science. In recognition of this, the authors, a neuroscientist and a poet, use a dialogical approach to extend questions and ideas first shared during a lab-based poetry residency. They recorded a conversation and then expanded it into an essayistic form, allowing divergent disciplinary understandings and uses of experiment, noise, voice and emotion to be articulated, shared and questioned.

Highlights

Dialogues and collaborations between scientists and nonscientists are widely understood as important elements of scientific research and public engagement with science
The authors, a neuroscientist and a poet, use a dialogical approach to extend questions and ideas first shared during a lab-based poetry residency
Experiment JW: Shall we start by talking about what experiment means in each of our fields?1 I think about experiment as a process of trying things out, and so when I say I write “experimental poetry” what I generally mean is that the outcome isn’t determined in advance, and I’m prepared for things to go wrong

Summary

Introduction

Dialogues and collaborations between scientists and nonscientists are widely understood as important elements of scientific research and public engagement with science. The kind of knowledge that’s produced out of that is an experiential one; anything that people find out about the possibilities for literature or for lived experience is known in the performance, or the hearing, or the reading of the poetry.

Results

Conclusion