Interdisciplinarity: new reconfigurations of the social and natural sciences seminar series

Over twenty years ago, in the early 2000s, Georgina Born, Andrew Barry and Marilyn Strathern led an ESRC funded project that focused on new institutional collaborations between natural and social scientists and creative practitioners. In these collaborations, the work of social scientists and artists often served to supplement dominant naturals scientific or engineering paradigms, standing in for a wider engagement with society (Barry, Born and Weszkalnys 2008, Born and Barry 2010, Barry and Born 2013). In some collaborations, there was a more radical reconfiguration of the relation between different forms of practice. In this mini-series of events, we revisit the question of the relation between the disciplines at a different moment, and from different angles.

Today, the potential contribution of the social and historical sciences to what were once thought of predominantly scientific or technical domains (including climate change and environmental research, computer science and AI) is more established, although it remains uneven. However, there is also growing recognition that an engagement with the natural and computational sciences have become critical to the reconfiguration of the social sciences themselves, beyond the established field of Science and Technology Studies.

In this mini-series, we reflect on the question of interdisciplinarity and the social and historical sciences through a series of conversations with Ann Stoler (Radical Adisciplinarity), Mariam Motamedi-Fraser  (Animal Studies), Nikolas Rose (The Exposome), John Haddon (History, archaeology, palaeoscience), and Georgina Born and Andrew Barry (on AI, Environment, Art).

Programme of events:

Title: AI, Environment, Art
Date and Time: 20 May 5-6pm
Location: Common Ground, IAS and online (hybrid)
Georgina Born (IAS and Anthropology, UCL) in conversation with Andrew Barry
Booking link: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/anthropocene/events/2025/may/ai-and-interdisciplinarity

Title: Animal Studies
Date and Time: 27 May 5-6pm
Location: Common Ground, IAS and online (hybrid)
Mariam Motamedi-Fraser (UCL Anthropocene and Geography), in conversation with Andrew Barry
Booking link: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/anthropocene/events/2025/may/animal-studies

Title: Radical Adisciplinarity
Date and Time: 29 May 5-6pm
Location: online
Ann Stoler (New School University) in conversation with Andrew Barry
Booking link: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/anthropocene/events/2025/may/radical-adisciplinarity

Title: The Exposome
Date and Time: 3 June, 5-6pm
Location: online
Nikolas Rose (IAS, UCL) in conversation with Andrew Barry and Sahra Gibbon
Booking link: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/anthropocene/events/2025/jun/exposome

Title: History, archaeology, palaeoscience
Date and Time: 10 June, 5-6pm
Location: Common Ground, IAS and online (hybrid)
John Haldon (History, Princeton) in conversation with John Sabapathy
Booking link: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/anthropocene/events/2025/jun/history-archaeology-palaeoscien