Curiosity Studies: A New Ecology of Knowledge

Description

The 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. Contents Foreword • Pam 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 E. 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