Integrating Aesthetics into STEM

Presentation by Margaret Freeman (Myrifield Institute for Cognition and the Arts, USA) "Team STE(A)M: Integrating Aesthetics into STEM" in the framework of the Seminar on "Practices of Liberal Education" (58–60 Galernaya Street).

The STEM educational initiative encourages students to study science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. While such encouragement is important, it is sadly remiss in ignoring the significance of aesthetics, the study of human cognitive activity, most manifested in the practice and study of the arts. Hence the creation of the global STEAM project to put the arts into STEM.

Margaret Freeman is co-director of Myrifield Institute for Cognition and the Arts in Heath, Massachusetts, and a co-editor of the Oxford University Press series in Cognition and Poetics. Her research interests lie in the interdisciplinary fields of the cognitive sciences, especially literature, poetics, linguistics, and philosophy. She currently works in cognitive aesthetics, with especial focus on developing a theory of poetic iconicity.

While practical activities in education are taking place in various places around the world, little attention is being paid to research on how aesthetics and science may be integrated. Myrifield Institute for Cognition and the Arts is therefore proposing the development of a network to further research in integrating cognition, sciences, and the arts.