Theos will be hosting a discussion with Tom McLeish and Alison Milbank on the intellectual division between the sciences and the arts.
Sixty years ago, the novelist and scientist CP Snow delivered a lecture in which he famously claimed that “the intellectual life of the whole of western society” was divided into two cultures – the sciences and the humanities – and that the division harmed us all.
The lecture (and subsequent book) were controversial and remain debated to this day. But the familiar stereotypes of the scientist – precise, analytical, rational, unimaginative – and of the artist – creative, inspired, original, imaginative – show that he was on to something.
Are there two cultures? How creative is science? How analytical is art? And how alike are the two?
Do artists and scientists see the world differently? Can they learn from one another? Are science and the arts in fact closer than we think?
Theos will be hosting a discussion on this fascinating issue with Tom McLeish, Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of York, and author of The Poetry and Music of Science, and Alison Milbank, Professor of Theology and Literature at the University of Nottingham and author of God and the Gothic: Religion, Romance and Realism in the English Literary Tradition.
The event will be held at Theos, 77 Great Peter Street, SW1P 2EZ on Tuesday 8 October, doors open 6.30 for 7pm. Q&A and refreshments will follow the discussion. Books by the authors will be on sale from Church House Bookshop.
