In this episode of the Project Narrative Podcast, Jim Phelan and Rhona Trauvitch discuss “The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species” by Ken Liu, first published in the August 2012 issue of the online journal Lightspeed, and then included in Liu’s 2016 collection entitled The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories. Rhona Trauvitch, Associate Teaching Professor at Florida International University, specializes in cross-disciplinary analogical reasoning, particularly at the intersection of literature and STEM. Trauvitch directs Florida International University’s Science and Fiction Lab, whose mission is to build bridges between research and teaching in STEM fields and in the humanities. Her work in the lab has been supported by Humanities Initiatives Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and most recently by a grant from the National Science Foundation. Trauvitch’s own research and teaching have been devoted to exploring how fictionality can be used to enhance non-scientists’ comprehension of science, including especially difficult to comprehend concepts in science. Trauvitch is the author of a forthcoming book, Fi-Sci: Avatars of Science and Fiction, which demonstrates her model in action. Trauvitch has also co-edited a forthcoming special issue of Style on the interrelations of fiction and science.
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