Description
Book SynopsisThe first English-language collection to establish curiosity studies as a unique field
From science and technology to business and education, curiosity is often taken for granted as an unquestioned good. And yet, few people can define curiosity. Curiosity Studies marshals scholars from more than a dozen fields not only to define curiosity but also to grapple with its ethics as well as its role in technological advancement and global citizenship. While intriguing research on curiosity has occurred in numerous disciplines for decades, no rigorously cross-disciplinary study has existed—until now.
Curiosity Studies stages an interdisciplinary conversation about what curiosity is and what resources it holds for human and ecological flourishing. These engaging essays are integrated into four clusters: scientific inquiry, educational practice, social relations, and transformative power. By exploring curiosity through the practice of scientific inquiry, the contours of human learning, the stakes of social difference, and the potential of radical imagination, these clusters focus and reinvigorate the study of this universal but slippery phenomenon: the desire to know.
Against the assumption that curiosity is neutral, this volume insists that curiosity has a history and a political import and requires precision to define and operationalize. As various fields deepen its analysis, a new ecosystem for knowledge production can flourish, driven by real-world problems and a commitment to solve them in collaboration. By paying particular attention to pedagogy throughout, Curiosity Studies equips us to live critically and creatively in what might be called our new Age of Curiosity.
Contributors: Danielle S. Bassett, U of Pennsylvania; Barbara M. Benedict, Trinity College; Susan Engel, Williams College; Ellen K. Feder, American U; Kristina T. Johnson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Narendra Keval; Christina León, Princeton U; Tyson Lewis, U of North Texas; Amy Marvin, U of Oregon; Hilary M. Schor, U of Southern California; Seeta Sistla, Hampshire College; Heather Anne Swanson, Aarhus U.
Table of ContentsContents
Foreword
Pamela Grossman and John L. Jackson Jr.
Introduction: What Is Curiosity Studies?
Perry Zurn and Arjun Shankar
Part I. Interrogating the Scientific Enterprise
1. Exploring the Costs of Curiosity: An Environmental Scientist’s Dilemma
Seeta Sistla
2. Curious Ecologies of Knowledge: More-than-Human Anthropology
Heather Anne Swanson
3. Curiosity, Ethics, and the Medical Management of Intersex Anatomies
Ellen K. Feder
Part II. Relearning How We Learn
4. A Network Science of the Practice of Curiosity
Danielle S. Bassett
5. Why Should This Be So? The Waxing and Waning of Children’s Curiosity
Susan Engel
6. The Dude Abides, or, Why Curiosity Is Important for Education Today
Tyson Lewis
7. “The Campus is Sick”: Capitalist Curiosity and Student Mental Health
Arjun Shankar
Part III. Reimagining How We Relate
8. Autism, Neurodiversity, and Curiosity
Kristina T. Johnson
9. Obstacles to Curiosity and Concern: Exploring the Racist Imagination
Narendra Keval
10. Curious Entanglements: Opacity and Ethical Relation in Latina/o Aesthetics
Christina León
11. Transsexuality, the Curio, and the Transgender Tipping Point
Amy Marvin
Part IV. Deconstructing the Status Quo
12. Peeping and Transgression: Curiosity and Collecting in English Literature
Barbara M. Benedict
13. Curiosity and Political Resistance
Perry Zurn
14. Curiosity at the End of the World: Women, Fiction, Electricity
Hilary M. Schor
Conclusion: On Teaching Curiosity
Arjun Shankar and Perry Zurn
Afterword
Helga Nowotny
Acknowledgments
Contributors
Index
