Sunday, June 19, 2011

We exist!

I was recently at a party attended mainly by grad students in the Sociology department. One party-goer revealed that she had a secret crush on a student outside of Sociology and a mutual friend of ours quickly began listing off names of departments in an attempt to narrow down the identity of the crushee. But, when he exuberantly called out “History of Science,” the girl laughed and replied “No, name some real departments!”

We are, indeed, a real department (the oldest and in U.S., even), but as any grad student currently working on their PhD in the HoS knows, many people have never heard of the department or discipline. I often get asked if I do “more history or science” when I tell people what I'm getting my doctorate in. How to remedy this? Probably with a cool t-shirt:

I mean, did anyone know what NASA was before this came out:

Probably not.
Ok. I really just want to make a cool t-shirt to commemorate my time here. But, this might raise awareness of the department around campus... maybe. The question is: what to put on it? A graphic representing Galileo's velocity experiment will no longer do since the Sci Rev isn't as central to our discipline. I do think we could create a design that would appeal to everyone. I'm willing to look through Special Collections for cool images, but this might just generate a list of of quirky images that Meridith likes. So, I'm hoping we can collectively come-up with a list of ideas for designs. I'm reasonably good at illustration and volunteer to draw something up if you have an idea, but neither the time nor inclination to sketch it.

5 comments:

  1. Mer, one possibility is to combine three images, each representing science, medicine, or technology, or try to find some single image that somehow expresses the heart of our discipline. Maybe an ancient figure of wisdom, or another figure like Clio?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Any of the slogans/designs from the pins Andrew so generously made for us would be awesome.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'll look into getting some made and figure out some pricing and bring the info to the next grad student meeting in the fall?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I liked "Join the revolution" (Copernican), although most of us are hist. of modern sci. The modern stuff is harder to think of jokes about for some reason.

    ReplyDelete