Introduction

Nearly half a century after C.P. Snow’s famous lecture on The Two Cultures (1959) which posited that a fracture in the intellectual life of the West existed between the science and the humanities, STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics + Arts and Humanities) integrations and cross-pollinations are becoming more relevant than ever. Science can benefit from philosophical, ethical and aesthetic insights, in order to better deal with issues of uncertainty and contingency. Conversely, arts and humanities disciplines can be energized by scientific understandings of dynamic processes, technological innovations and the process of exploration and discovery. It is apt to recall that Leonardo Da Vinci’s combined studies between 1490 and 1495 of art and science (particularly hydrology and the mathematics of perspective and proportion) contributed to his masterpiecesThe Last Supper (1498) and the Mona Lisa (1503). Equally, medical scientist James Lovelock’s formulation of the GAIA Hypothesis (positing the earth as a self-regulating system) was informed in part by interactions with the writer William Golding, author of the novel Lord of the Flies (1954). Contemporarily, collaborative efforts between literary scholars and computational linguists have been able to trace the early onset of dementia in the works of authors Iris Murdoch, P. D. James and Agatha Christie. Indeed, as technology and the human species continue to symbiotically evolve, STEAM approaches will be crucial to facilitating acute and long-term insights into possible social and environmental interactions, impacts, benefits and consequences for our human condition. The present volume explores these exciting possibilities in detail, with contributions ranging from bacteria art, to the theoretical and practical benefits of dancing a PhD in renewable energy, to introductions to the emerging fields of heritage science, environmental and digital humanities, among others.