Productive (adj)

Apologies for this post being a little later than I'd have liked, but I've been under a cloud of "blegh" for the past week and it's been difficult to get anything done. Like having a lingering cold, except instead of sneezing you don't have the energy to do anything except watch season 3 of Star Trek: The Next Generation. In this week's roundup over at The Bubble Chamber  I wrote about some new research exposing the potential pitfalls of sexual stereotyping, and linked to the disastrous EC's "Science: It's a Girl Thing" video (which was so offputting when released this past summer that it immediately went viral). Fortunately, the marketing for the EC's continued " Science: It's a Girl Thing " campaign seems to have overcome its initial pinkwashing and now features girl models doing more than strutting the catwalk: taking pictures, standing in front of blackboards, and daydreaming. Writing about "Science: ...

On Friday, January 25th, York University Science & Technology Studies graduate students from Katey Anderson ’s Science & Technology as Material Culture course (plus a few hangers-on, including yours truly) got a behind-the-scenes tour of the artifacts at the Canadian Science & Technology Museum , courtesy of David Pantalony . The grounds of the CSTM David Pantalony (right) and the muddy-footed tour group  We checked out the collections in storage, as well as the “artifacts in the wild” on display to the public. In addition to performing material analyses of artifacts, we explored storage warehouses, skulked around in backstage areas off-limits to the public, and toured the museum’s library. In this post I’ll describe our time at the CSTM, as well as David’s approach to artifacts, material culture, and his curatorial work. The storage warehouse An exciting... something. The CSTM is a little off the beaten track as far as Ottawa’s museums go. L...