“I Prefer the Map”

In the 2020 Prague Virtual Conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), Sharon Traweek was awarded the society’s John D. Bernal Prize jointly with Langdon Winner. The Bernal Prize is awarded annually to individuals who have made distinguished contributions to the field of STS. Prize recipients include founders of the field of STS, along with outstanding scholars who have devoted their careers to the understanding of the social dimensions of science and technology. This essay comprises Traweek’s acceptance speech, delivered on Monday, August 17, 2020 at the virtual joint conference of the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S) and the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST), and revised and submitted for publication in Engaging Science, Technology, and Society on Sunday, September 20, 2020. In this essay, Traweek explores “certainty” in academic ways of knowing.

Anniversary of Edith Hinkley Quimby

At the beginning of the 20th century, the whole world was searching for radioactive substances application, in particular radium. Radium can be used to treat oncology, but no one knew the verge of overdosing and underdosing. The founder of radiobiology can be considered Lewis Gray, who introduced unit for absorbed dose of radiation [1]. It was Edith Quimby who started looking for that therapeutically effective absorbed dose. It’s to calculate the minimum effective dose of activity for each patient. She has written 75 articles, published books that have become used concepts in biophysics, and handbooks of modern editions of radiologists. She became the first woman and the first physicist to become president of the American Radium Society, an organization dedicated to the study and treatment of cancer. At one time, Arthur Compton spoke about the need to introduce and apply physics in medicine, and Quimby, in her acceptance speech, outlined the need for an organization of medical physicists, and in 1958, owing to her, the American Society of Medical Physicists was created. Edith Quimby was and remains an iconic figure in the history of the development of medical physics.

Myth and Poetry in Macondo

One Hundred Years of Solitude has frequently been approached from a historical perspective, focusing on the colonial imprint in Latin America’s destiny. Yet in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, García Márquez made it clear that he wished to be remembered for the poetry that permeates his writing. This article is inspired by this assertion, as well as by a quote from Ernesto Sabato, who claims that for philosophers and artists, myth and poetry are keys to access the Absolute: truth, beauty, and perfection. Taking into account the few previous attempts to pursue these motifs in the novel, the article undertakes a search of the traces of both myth and poetry in García Márquez’s opera magna. The faces of myth are many: Oedipus, prophecies, magic, utopia, the mandala of the tree of life, cyclical time, alchemy, one-dimensional characters (actants), genesis, and apocalypse. On the other hand, poems and metaphors are ever present in the novel. This search led to a new reading of One Hundred Years of Solitude, discovering García Márquez’ celebration of ambiguity. For the novel’s conclusion moves the reader to two opposing interpretations: apocalypse (the destruction of Macondo and the solitary Buendía dynasty) and hope (solidarity in a new mankind). The possibility of clashing readings confirms Italo Calvino’s definition of a classic as a book that never finishes saying what it has to say.