Science, the Arts, and the Humanities

Science, the Arts, and the Humanities

Creativity, passion and the urge for expression and exploration are essential human qualities that inspire science, the arts, and the humanities, and thus constitute a common bond among them. WISL helps people explore, discuss, and cultivate the intellectual and emotional links between science, the arts, and the humanities. People can value, appreciate, and enjoy science without a deep understanding of specific details, just as they can appreciate music without a specialized knowledge of music theory, or appreciate literature, the theater, and the visual arts without being experts in those fields. Programs of the Initiative focus on the relationships, similarities, and differences in inquiry, creativity, and personal expression among scientists, artists, and humanists. A specific goal is to give musicians, artists, writers, and performers – present and future – an appreciation of science and enable them to see and understand the connections between science and the arts.

Oxygen 20th Anniversary (May 2023)
A conversation with Bassam Shakhashiri
and Roald Hoffmann

Watch the conversation

Learn more about Oxygen

In the spring of 2003, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Theater Department staged a production of the Carl Djerassi and Roald Hoffmann play, Oxygen. There was also an accompanying symposium hosted at UW.

Watch the play on YouTube

Read the Oxygen Symposium program

Material for Classroom Teachers:
Study guide
The Story of O

Journal of Chemical Education review

Wisconsin Academy Review writeup

Wisconsin Week writeup

Vision gallery features work by low-vision artists in 'Sight Beyond Limits'

Barenboim: What Beethoven’s Ninth Teaches Us

A conversation with Renée Fleming and Francis Collins

Music and the Mind

Art and climate science collide at San Francisco’s Exploratorium

Artistic representations of data can help bridge the US political divide over climate change

From Nature magazine, this article details a study that found artistic visualizations elicited stronger positive emotions than informationally equivalent data graphs.

Flowing between art and science

Science, Poetry, and Society

Tuesday, April 18, 2023 at 6:30 p.m.
NAS Building, Washington DC
(In-person event with recording made available afterward)

Science and Arts Mural

New interactive mural invites exploration and engagement with science

Learn about the scientists featured in the mural

Museums: Where conservation and chemistry connect

Consilience Issue 8: Entropy

Exploring the spaces where the sciences and the arts meet

Les cares dels llibres” (The Faces of Books)

View on the web (in Catalan)

View as PDF

Winter is Alive! lights up Madison
with art about climate change

Crafted from fabric, wood and metal as well as ice and snow, each piece is part of Winter is Alive!, a new multi-disciplinary arts exhibition of global proportions.

The Benzine ~ Issue 1, Fall 2020

The Benzine is a micro-publication celebrating art and science in the
UW-Madison chemistry community. Peer-written, edited, and published, they are an outlet for UW-Madison chemists to share their art.

How Nuclear Bomb Tests Are Helping to Identify Art Forgeries

Snow's Storm

C.P. Snow's 1959 diagnosis of a divide between British scientists and humanists took on a new meaning in America

STEAM not STEM: Why scientists need arts training

A Thousand Beautiful Dreams

The University of Michigan-Flint Chamber Singers join the Festival Choir of Madison for this special performance.

Flint, Michigan has become a symbol of how social and environmental justice (and injustice) are intertwined. We welcome the University of Michigan-Flint Chamber Singers, under Dr. Gabriela Hristova, to join with us in presenting recent music that gives voice to the tragedies of the past and present, the promise of social equality and inclusion, and hope for the future of both our society and our planet.

Melding science and art with glass

Master glassblower’s art, work on exhibit at Madison Children’s Museum

Mata Ortiz Pottery
Artistic Rebirth of a Mexican Village
Wellington & Muranyi Galleries
Monroe Arts Center
1315 11th Street
Monroe, WI 53566

Friday, January 25, 2019 through Friday, March 29, 2019

More information

Read an Isthmus article on the exhibition

Your Brain on Abstract Art
McPherson Eye Research Institute's
Mandelbaum & Albert Family Vision Gallery

The subject of this exhibition is YOU, specifically how your brain interprets what you see and how abstract art affects your perception, memory, and emotions. Abstract art in a range of styles will include works by Chuck Bauer, Brian Besch, Pamela Callahan, Sue Jachimiec, Sue Johnson, Trent Miller, Judith Mjaanes, Ben Orozco, Sandra Peterson, and Rick Ross.

We Are All Riders on the Same Planet

How Plato Foresaw Facebook's Folly

Music and chemistry—what's the connection?

2018 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences Arts and Letters Fellows

Since 1982, the Wisconsin Academy Fellows Award recognizes educators, researchers, mentors, artists, and civic or business leaders from across Wisconsin who have made substantial contributions to the cultural life and welfare of our state and its people.

The 2018 inductees who spoke at the award ceremony include poet Max Garland, who read his poem, Hydrogen, and Dr. Dipesh Navsaria, who spoke about clarity of purpose, a subject on which Prof. Shakhashiri (a 2005 Academy Fellow) has also written.

Is the Scientific Method a Myth?
Does the scientific method include non-trivial principles of reasoning that apply across vastly different subject matters, or is the real work in science done by methods that are highly specific to the subject matter at hand?

Leo-Leo Galileo by Bela Sandor

Two acts in 90 minutes

December 18, 2017
7 PM
UW Lowell Center, 610 Langdon Street

An historical drama that has relevance in our time. Presented by Playwrights Ink of Madison, in cooperation with the UW-Madison Retirement Association, the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters, and the Wisconsin Initiative for Science Literacy.

The main themes are the intense rivalry of two powerful Cardinals for the Papacy, and their compelling need to control the politically toxic Galileo, a person they otherwise appreciate and admire. Galileo is subtly siding with both Cardinals, but the best he can get for himself is permanent house arrest, a virtual burial alive. The play is relevant in our world, where widespread anti-science beliefs cause societal conflict, regressive governmental actions are common, and freedom of expression is not assured.

Reading cast:

Nick Schweitzer - Director

Bob Curry - Narrator

Sam White - Galileo

Jason Compton - Cardinal; Chief Inquisitor

Barry Levenson - Cardinal; Pope Urban VIII

Marisa Kahler - Celeste, Galileo’s daughter

The Paint Formulator: Not Just Mixing Colors

Catching the Eye
Of McPherson Eye Research Institute Members
An exhibit exploring how vision research and the artistic eye align in artworks created or collected by members of the McPherson ERI.

Why is simpler better?

Alexis Rockman Bridges the Gulf Between
Art and Science

Classical music: Let us now praise Kato Perlman
and other donors and sponsors whose generosity supports classical music at the UW-Madison and elsewhere
From The Well-Tempered Ear Blog

Don't Turn Away From the Art of Life

Our Waters, Our Future Writing Contest

Solar textile collaboration weaves chemistry and design

Anna Atkins: Google Doodle artfully celebrates a true-blue photographic pioneer

A Radical Journey of Art, Science, and Entrepreneurship: A Self-Taught Victorian Woman's Visionary Ornithological Illustrations

In Tom Stoppard's 'Hard Problem,' a Search for Certainty and Order

Arts, Sciences, Action: Bassam Shakhashiri

The Phi Beta Kappa Society National Arts & Sciences Initiative

Duetting musicians are linked by math

This Scientist's 'art' depicts an Earth in crisis

How This Renoir Used to Look

Dr. Casadio's visit to the UW-Madison Chemistry Department

Classical music: Oboist Marc Fink retires after 40 years of teaching at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and announces his local “Farewell Tour” this spring.
From The Well-Tempered Ear Blog