Educators come from three different continents

As part of the "13. On the Day of BHAAAS," there will be interesting workshops and a panel on the topic "How to Write About Science."

The Bosnian-Herzegovinian-American Academy of Arts and Sciences (BHAAAS) will this year, as part of the scientific event "13. Days of BHAAAS in BiH" and in cooperation with the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Sarajevo, arrange a panel discussion under the title "Science in narratives, narratives in science" and two practical workshops: one dedicated to the use of science in literary expression and the other dedicated to scientific journalism. The workshops, which are intended for anyone interested in science, are an opportunity for the free exchange of ideas and knowledge and a space where science and creativity can come together.

The panel discussion and workshops will be held on June 24, 2022, in the reading room of the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo.

The experience of natural and social sciences through the pandemic years, as well as the ongoing climate crisis, have shown that clear, strong, and strict talking about science is imperative. Also, it is made clear that this task is not left to scientists alone. It is the panelists who will share their testimonies from their own lives and work about the interaction of science, society, and storytelling, with the intention of opening and advancing the discussion within the BHAAAS community and its audience.

Panelists and moderators come from as many as three continents: Anna Botta and Jim Hick from the USA, Fabio Deotto from Italy, and Tabish Kair, who lives and works in Denmark and is originally from India.

About the panelists:

Fabio Deotto is an Italian writer, translator, and journalist. After completing his studies in molecular biotechnology, he wrote fiction and nonfiction, focusing on the interaction of science and the humanities. He is the author of two novels, Condominio R39 (Einaudi, 2014) and Un attimo prima (Einaudi, 2017), and one non-fiction book, L'altro mondo: la vita in un mondo che cambia (Bompiani, 2021), where he focuses on the cognitive and cultural bases of climate inaction. He is the translator of Marshall McLuhan's Lost Tetrads by Eric and Marshall McLuhan, The Compass of Pleasure by David J. Linden, Climate Leviathan by Geoff Mann and Joel Wainwright, and other nonfiction works. His work has appeared in Wired, Esquire, Nuovi Argomenti, Corriere della Sera, and other publications. He teaches creative writing at the Scuola Holden—Contemporary Humanities in Turin.

Tabish Khair was born and educated in a small town in India, worked as a journalist in Delhi, received his doctorate in Copenhagen, and is now an associate professor at Aarhus University in Denmark. In addition to critical studies published by Oxford University Press and Palgrave, he is also the author of critically acclaimed collections of poetry and novels, shortlisted for various international awards. His poetry collection Quarantine Sonnets: Sex, Money, and Shakespeare was published by Kitaab in 2020; recent novels include The Thing About Thugs, How to Fight Islamist Terror from a Missionary Position (Interlink 2014; Corsair 2014), and Just Another Jihadi Jane (Periscope 2016; Interlink 2017). A new speculative novel, which mixes science and fiction, called The Body by the Shore, will be published by Interlink (USA) and HarperCollins (India) in 2022.

Jim Hicks is executive editor of the Massachusetts Review and former director of the Graduate Program in Comparative Literature at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His scholarly and teaching interests include cultural studies, accounts of war, comparative studies in American literature, and modernist narrative and literary theory. He studied in France, taught in Italy, and also taught in Bosnia and Herzegovina as a Fulbright professor of English. He also led a three-year US government-funded educational partnership program between Smith College and the University of Sarajevo. His translations include short works by François-Marie Banier, Italo Calvino, Gianni Celati, Ananda Devi, Violaine Huisman, Luigi Lo Cascio, Juan José Saer, Izet Sarajlić, Igiaba Scego, and longer works by Erri De Luca. His Lessons from Sarajevo: An Example of War Stories was published by the University of Massachusetts Press in 2013.

By the way, Jim Hicks is a member of BHAAAS and a great lover of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where he lived and worked for a year, and also speaks the Bosnian language.

Anna Botta was born in Turin, studied at the Université de Genève and Università di Torino, and received her Ph.D. in comparative literature and literary theory from the University of Pennsylvania. At Smith College, she headed the Program for Comparative Literature and the Department of Italian Studies and is also a member of the Faculty of Film and Media Studies. She has published two co-authored books, Calvino newyorkese (Avagliano, 2002) and Le eccentriche (Tre lune, 2003). Together with Michel Moushabeck, she edited a special issue of the Massachusetts Review on "Mediterraneans" (2014). She has published articles on Italo Calvino, Cristina Campo, Gianni Celati, Antonio Tabucchi, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Renato Poggioli, Lina Prosa, Georges Didi-Huberman, Julia Kristeva, Georges Perec, Patrick Modiano, and Predrag Mat