Social Science in Search of its Muse: Exploratory Workshops in Arts-related Production and Dissemination of Social Science Data

A series of four workshops will be based around the following principles: it is a historical fact that the major upheavals and transformations in Western arts and science occurred during periods of cross-pollination from discipline to discipline; we believe that art and science are both "fuelled by creativity" (Taylor 2001) and that the potential for inventiveness resides within all of us. After all is said, "creativity is that uncanny ability to work within rule boundaries while, at the same time, changing them" (Jones 2006). We believe that engagement in co-operation with others outside of our own disciplines itself can become a creative act, often stretching the boundaries of our understanding and prodding us to come up with fresh and innovative ways of overcoming practical obstacles to knowledge transfer.
The Seminar Series will afford opportunities for participants to engage in hands-on experiences of working with concepts and tools from the arts and humanities in producing and disseminating social science findings, facilitated by artists, poets, performers and filmmakers. A series of four workshops over nine months will present opportunities to work with social science techniques and data, reconsidered from the vantage point of expanding the means of production and dissemination available to us to new and creative levels. The topics of the workshops include "Stifling or stimulating creativity", "Songs without Words", "Visual Ways of Knowing" and "Rhythm and Blues: Turning to the body". Workshops are open to anyone interested in exploring this exciting shift in production and diffusion of social science data.