I knew C.P. Snow and he gave me a great deal of support in 1965 when I first started working on Cybernetic Serendipity.
However, I'd like to tell you first of all the story of the Gaberbocchus Common Room that tried to build the bridges between the two cultures in the 1950s. I was there.
C.P. Snow's article about the two cultures came out in the New Statesman on 6th October 1956.
On 22nd October, the writer and founder of Gaberbocchus Press, Stefan Themerson, wrote to Snow as follows:
Dear Mr. Snow,
You have never heard of me, and I don't know whether you have ever come across "Gaberbocchus", but your TWO CULTURES in the New Statesman, expresses so precisely
an lucidly our attitudes that I decided to venture this letter.
"Gaberbocchus" intends to turn a part of its premises into something that would provide writers who haven't yet escaped completely into orthodoxy and scientists who haven't yet ossified in their specialisations an opportunity of meeting one another.
I wonder whether you would be willing to let us reprint TWO CULTURES (with all due acknowledgments) in the form of a broadsheet for free distribution among them.
Or, perhaps, would you consider enlarging on the subject (up to 8,000 or 10,000 words) for publication in the form of a small volume in our "Gaberbocchus Black Series"?
Yours sincerely
Stefan Themerson
Snow knew and sympathised with Gaberbocchus but wanted publish Two Cultures together with other writings as a book, but if he didn't succeed, he would give it to Themerson to print as a broadsheet.
Gaberbocchus Common Room opened in August 1957. "The aim of this Common Room is to provide artists and scientists and people interested in oth the philosophy of science and the philosophy of art with a congenial place where they can meet and exchange thoughts..."
The Common Room was the first meeting place in the UK to concern itself with building bridges between art and science. It was active for two years. The address was 42a Formosa Street, London W9. The Common Room was open on Thursday and later also on Tuesday evenings. Members and their visitors came, listened, watched, looked at journals, drank coffee and wine, ate spaghetti, and talked. There were art exhibitions on the walls.
The programmes included: the showings of science films; talks about mathematical models;
interaction between science and art; feedback in the theatre; cybernetics and psychology; philosophy of science; electronic and concrete music; physiological toys; topology; poetry, Schwitters, etc.etc. It was the place where I first heard lectures on cybernetics, and where Jack Good talked about the UltraIntelligent Machine.
Barbara Wright kept a minute book and all the events, discussions and interventions from the audience are all documented and luckily the material is preserved.
I am glad that Yasmin will deal with this important and little discussed aspect of history.
with best wishes
Jasia
----- Original Message -----
From: "roger malina" <rmalina@alum.mit.edu>
To: "YASMIN DISCUSSIONS" <Yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr>
Sent: Friday, May 08, 2009 10:47 AM
Subject: [Yasmin_discussions] One Two Three or More Cultures;50th anniversary of C.P Snow's The Two Cultures
> Yasminers
>
> I would like to propose as a topic for our coming week the 50th
> anniversary of the publication
> of C P Snow's The Two Cultures essay. John Brockman has interesting
> materials related to this
> on his web site The Edge http://www.edge.org
>
> For YASMINERS is the two cultures debate still relevant, or are we in
> a new situation where
> we need to think in other ways . What is new or different today than
> it was 50 years ago ?
>
> It would be interesting to hear from those of you in your 70s now on
> our list= who were
> already engaged in these questions in the 1960s,
>
> and also from YASMINERS now in
> their 20s= what are the problems you face as young artists or
> scientists working together
> on projects of mutual interest ?
>
> For those of you who live in south america or asia and are on YASMIN,
> you live in
> cultures with very diffferent histories of both art and science that those of us
> who live in the mediterranean region. How does this debate get reframed in your
> contexts ? What problems do you encounter in your home towns when you
> try and cross disciplinary boundaries ?
>
> Roger Malina
>
> THE THIRD CULTURE
> ----------------------------------------------------
> The third culture consists of those scientists and other thinkers in
> the empirical world who, through their work and expository writing,
> are taking the place of the traditional intellectual in rendering
> visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefining who and what we
> are.
>
> On the 50th Anniversary of the Publication of
> C.P. Snow's Rede Lecture,
> "The Two Cultures"
>
> Today, May 7, 2009, marks the 50th Anniversary of the publication of
> C.P. Snow's Rede Lecture, "The Two Cultures". In a second edition of
> The Two Cultures, published in 1963, Snow added a new essay, "The Two
> Cultures: A Second Look," in which he optimistically suggested that a
> new culture, a "third culture," would emerge and close the
> communications gap between the literary intellectuals and the
> scientists. In Snow's third culture, the literary intellectuals would
> be on speaking terms with the scientists. This never happened.
> Although I borrowed Snow's phrase in my 1991 essay "The Third
> Culture", it does not describe the third culture he predicted.
>
> The third culture consists of those scientists and other thinkers in
> the empirical world who, through their work and expository writing,
> are taking the place of the traditional intellectual in rendering
> visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefining who and what we
> are. Increasingly, The Third Culture has moved into the mainstream and
> the questions it is asking are those that inform us about ourselves
> and the world around us.
>
> I am pleased to honor the memory of C.P. Snow and his "Two Cultures"
> by presenting "The Third Culture" on Edge, 1997 to today.
>
> John Brockman, Editor
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------
> http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge284.html
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