AlexisTongueDESMA9- Two Cultures

 

C.P Snow in his book Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution expresses the idea that 

“…the intellectual life of the whole of western society is increasingly being split into two polar groups. Literary intellectuals at one pole-at the other scientists and as the most representative, the physical scientists” (Snow, 4). This is very true and apparent in the structure of UCLA’s very own campus. The campus is split into North Campus (humanities and the arts) and South Campus (science and technology). 




North Campus is known to hold the classrooms of Theater, Art, Sociology, English, etc., majors. In the past, most students in these majors rarely made the journey over to the opposite end of campus only to take one or two GE classes. The same went for South Campus students, very rarely did they cross over to take many classes or spend much time in North Campus areas. However, as time has progressed a third culture has emerged to bridge the gap between the two sides of campus. Students are learning more about their creativity and exploring classes and groups outside of their typical major. “One of the most important scientists to comment on the similarities between artists' and scientists' creative processes, physicist Werner Heisenberg believed that artists' creativity arose out of the interplay between the spirit of the time and the individual” (Vensa, 122) There are many similarities between students that go to UCLA, this interplay between the spirit of the time and the individual shows up every day as students explore various parts of campus. The sculpture garden, for example, found in North Campus, is open to students and the public to gaze upon art surrounded by nature. This is a prime example of art and science or in this case, art and nature coexisting.

 

 

https://www.tft.ucla.edu/about/map/

https://epss.ucla.edu/directions/

https://hammer.ucla.edu/collections/franklin-d-murphy-sculpture-garden

Vesna, Victoria. “Toward a Third Culture: Being in Between.” Leonardo, vol. 34, no. 2, The MIT Press, 2001, pp. 121–25, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1577014.

Snow, C. P. (Charles Percy), 1905-1980. The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution. New York :Cambridge University Press, 1959.

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