Arts and Science faculty are invited to an inclusive conversation about one of the most timely and challenging topics of our day: evidence.

The nature and importance of evidence have always been signal issues for scholarly disciplines and professional practice. Yet they have been highly contested in the popular arena as well in the US in 2020 as the novel coronavirus, vaccines, the Presidential election, and police brutality have burst into public discourse with great urgency; the very words "evidence-based" have become polemical for some. With all of this as background, we would like to invite any and all interested faculty to contribute to a discussion on "Evidence."

After an introduction and contextual framing of the three questions below, we will launch into curated panels featuring video presentations submitted by individuals or groups of faculty exploring innovative research topics relevant to this conversation. The floor will open for continued conversation and inclusive Q&A sessions following each panel.

To prompt discussion, together with a faculty steering group, we propose the following three questions:

1. What are the different forms of evidence (narrative, statistical, theoretical, miracle, lived experience, conspiracy, etc.); when are they convincing, and when are they either complementary or in conflict with one another?

2. How is evidence shaped by the goals of the individuals and institutions that use it?

3. How do institutions and accepted mechanisms for obtaining evidence affect its production and its credibility for different audiences?

This school-wide conversation on Evidence will be held virtually via Zoom on April 9 from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm. 

 

Schedule

  • Welcoming Remarks: Antonio Merlo

  • 1:00pm - First Panel introduced by Carolyn Dinshaw

    • Paula McDowell - "Searchers of the Dead": Women and the Institutions of Evidence in the Great Plague of 1665-1666
    • Jordana Mendelson - Albums as Evidence: Adelita Lobo and Modern Art in Barcelona during 1930s
    • Sonia Werner - Anecdotal Evidence: Narrative, Novelty, and Truth
    • Colin Jerolmack - Data Transparency and Standards of Evidence in Ethnography
    • Michael Landy - It's Not Just the Evidence... It's How You Use It!
    • Elizabeth Hoffman - The Aesthetic Fact and Non-Propositional Evidence. Fiction, Forecast and Feeling: at the Epistemological Border of Objectivity and Subjectivity
    • Guillermina Jasso - Evidence and the Guiding Hand of Theory
    • Sara Partridge - Feeling as a First Principle: Conscience and Sentiment in Abolitionist Writings
    • Paul Horwich - On the Concept of Evidence: Some Elementary Points
    • Nate Mickelson - Student Writing as Evidence of Learning-in-Progress

  • 2:00pm - Second Panel introduced by Greg Gabadadze

    • Lisa Davidson and Gillian Gallagher - All You Don't Hear: Introspection vs. Measurement as Linguistic Evidence
    • Michael Strevens - Subjectivity and Objectivity in Scientific Evidence
    • Allen Mincer - Great Science, Fabulous Science, and Voodoo Science
    • Wendy Suzuki - The Power of Storytelling in Science
    • Michael Beckerman - Klein's Last Line: Six Kinds of Evidence
    • Rebecca Falkoff - The Evidential Hoard
    • David Moscovich - Surviving Evidence: Personal Inquiry and the Holocaust
    • Noelle Molé Liston - Scientific Evidence and Legal Accountability: Italy's "Trial Against Science"
    • Michelle McSwiggan Kelly, Mike Shum, and Linell Ajello - Constructions and Excavations: Evidence in Essay Writing

  • 3:00pm - Third Panel introduced by David Stasavage

    • Paul Boghossian - Post-Truth
    • Matthew Hayek - Hamburgers in a Heated World: The Role of Evidence in the Meat Industry's Climate Denial
    • Jennifer Jacquet - An Industry View of Scientific Evidence
    • Cyrus Samii - Making Evidence Credible in a World of Mistrust and Skepticism
    • Tim Maudlin - Evidence in the Sciences and in the Humanities
    • David Hoover - So-Called Evidence in Literary Studies
    • Dale Jamieson - Expertise and Democracy
    • Eugenio Refini - "Evidence" as in euidentia: A Rhetorical Approach
    • Patrick Deer - Embedded America: Problems of Evidence in Contemporary US War Culture

  • Q&A Session

  • Wrap-up remarks