Reading Science Through a Humanist Lens: An Interdisciplinary Encounter at the Regional Science Centre, Bhavnagar
This blog is written in fulfillment of an academic assignment assigned by the Head of the Department of English, Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University (MKBU), Prof. Dr. Dilip Barad.
On 10 December 2025, coinciding with the global observance of Nobel Prize Day, the Department of English, MKBU, organized an educational visit to the Regional Science Centre, Bhavnagar. Unlike a conventional academic excursion, the visit was designed as an interdisciplinary exercise, encouraging students of the humanities to engage with scientific knowledge through interpretive, cultural, ethical, and critical perspectives.
For students of English Studies, the visit offered a rare opportunity to read science—not merely as a body of empirical facts, but as a system of narratives, metaphors, ethical concerns, and meaning-making practices. The experience foregrounded an important insight: science, much like literature, is shaped by language, structure, imagination, and human intention.
First Encounter: Reading the Space as a Text
Stepping into the Regional Science Centre as a student trained in literary analysis, my attention was drawn less to individual machines and more to the overall organization of the space. The centre unfolded like a carefully structured text. Each gallery functioned as a chapter, introducing concepts, developing ideas, and offering moments of intellectual closure.
The exhibits did not encourage passive observation. Instead, they demanded interpretation, participation, and reflection. This resonated strongly with a foundational literary principle: meaning does not reside solely in content, but emerges through arrangement, emphasis, and context. Just as a literary text requires attentive reading, the Science Centre required intellectual engagement.
My background in close reading shaped how I observed not only the exhibits, but also the visitors interacting with them. Their hesitation, repetition, curiosity, and moments of insight closely resembled readers grappling with complex poems or theoretical texts. Understanding emerged gradually, through sustained engagement rather than instant comprehension. In this way, the Science Centre transformed into a living archive of human responses to knowledge.
Interpretation, Perspective, and the Construction of Knowledge
One of the most compelling aspects of the visit was the role of interpretation in shaping scientific understanding. Although grounded in empirical evidence, the exhibits did not present knowledge as fixed or absolute. A model illustrating planetary motion, for instance, functioned simultaneously as a scientific explanation and as a symbolic representation of order, balance, and cyclical time—concepts deeply embedded in philosophy, mythology, and literature.
This openness reaffirmed a central humanistic insight: knowledge is never entirely objective. It is mediated through language, representation, and cultural context. The Science Centre subtly demonstrated that science does not exist in opposition to the humanities. On the contrary, it relies on them. Scientific panels employed narrative clarity, metaphor, and visual storytelling to communicate complex ideas. Accuracy alone was insufficient; meaning required interpretation.
The visit thus dissolved rigid disciplinary boundaries and highlighted a shared intellectual impulse that underlies both science and literature—the desire to understand the world and humanity’s place within it.
Gallery-Wise Literary and Critical Engagement
1. Marine and Aquatic Gallery
The Marine and Aquatic Gallery offered a space that invited both scientific observation and contemplative reflection. Its transparent glass walls functioned like an open text through which life could be read in layers. Scientifically, the gallery demonstrated biodiversity and ecological balance; interpretively, it framed nature as an object of human meaning-making.
The slow, fluid movement of aquatic life against ancient rock formations evoked a sense of deep time—worlds that existed long before human language or historical record. Water emerged as a powerful symbolic presence, representing continuity, memory, and the unconscious, echoing its significance in myth, poetry, and spiritual traditions. At the same time, the visibility of fragile ecosystems prompted ethical reflection on environmental vulnerability and human responsibility.
Literary Connection:
The gallery evoked the Romantic notion of the Sublime, where nature inspires awe and existential humility. The interdependence of aquatic organisms aligns closely with Ecocriticism, which critiques anthropocentric worldviews and emphasizes ecological interconnectedness.
2. Automobile Gallery
The Automobile Gallery traced the evolution of bicycles, motorcycles, and motor vehicles, presenting technological progress as a narrative of movement, imagination, and cultural transformation. Each mechanical development reflected changing human relationships with space, speed, freedom, and identity.
Early vehicles suggested intimacy and vulnerability, while later designs embodied industrial efficiency and acceleration. This progression mirrored literary shifts from reflective travel narratives to modern themes of restlessness, alienation, and displacement. Motorcycles, in particular, emerged as cultural symbols of rebellion and individualism, transforming the road into a narrative space of desire and self-exploration.
Literary Connection:
In literary studies, the engine often symbolizes Modernity. It represents the transition from slow, contemplative experience to mechanized speed—a central concern of Modernist literature, which grapples with fragmentation, alienation, and psychological dislocation.
3. Electro-Mechanics Gallery
The Electro-Mechanics Gallery translated invisible forces into visible narratives. The Sun–Earth magnetic interaction, for instance, was presented almost as a dramatic conflict—energy versus resistance, intrusion versus protection. Solar winds appeared as powerful antagonistic forces, while Earth’s magnetic field functioned as a silent guardian.
Metaphorically, the exhibit echoed anxieties surrounding industrial modernity, where unchecked power demands ethical restraint. Rather than celebrating human domination over nature, the gallery emphasized balance, coexistence, and regulation.
Literary Connection:
The Maglev Train, suspended above traditional tracks, symbolized transcendence and alienation—recurring motifs in science fiction and speculative literature. The Plasma Globe, with its sudden bursts of energy, resembled literary representations of suppressed emotion or latent creativity awaiting expression.
4. Biology Science Gallery
Anchored in Darwin’s theory of evolution, the Biology Science Gallery presented life as an ongoing narrative of adaptation and transformation. Evolution was not portrayed as a static scientific fact, but as a dynamic biography of life itself, where change rather than permanence is fundamental.
This perspective challenged fixed notions of identity and aligned closely with literary and cultural theories that view the self as historically, socially, and environmentally constructed. Human bodies appeared not as ideal forms, but as archives of adaptation shaped by time and circumstance.
Literary Connection:
Evolution functions as a powerful narrative framework structured around struggle, survival, and transformation. The evolutionary tree mirrors literary history, where genres and movements branch out from shared traditions while retaining traces of their origins.
5. Nobel Gallery
The Nobel Gallery presented scientific achievement as a deeply human process rather than a mere chronology of discoveries. Biographical narratives emphasized perseverance, failure, ethical dilemmas, and historical context, dismantling the myth of sudden genius.
Scientists emerged as protagonists whose ideas reshaped not only scientific disciplines but also collective imagination. The gallery foregrounded responsibility, reminding viewers that innovation carries moral and social consequences—a concern long explored in literature and philosophy.
Literary Connection:
Scientific discovery parallels literary creation. Just as writers shape lived experience into narrative form, scientists organize empirical observation into theories that construct meaning and influence society.
Personal Reflection: Science as Narrative and Ethics
One of the most striking realizations from the visit was how seamlessly scientific exhibits invited interpretation through a humanistic lens. Rather than separating disciplines, the experience revealed their shared foundations in curiosity, storytelling, and ethical inquiry.
Literary associations surfaced throughout the visit. Industrial machinery echoed modernist anxieties; evolutionary models resembled narratives of transformation; marine ecosystems aligned with contemporary ecocritical concerns. The evolutionary tree, in particular, profoundly reshaped my understanding of human identity by situating humanity within a vast continuum of life.
Seeing humans alongside microorganisms, insects, and primates dismantled deeply ingrained anthropocentric assumptions. Evolution appeared as a grand narrative—an epic of shared ancestry and deep time—challenging Cartesian divisions between mind and body, human and nature.
Science, Literature, and Critical Theory
Certain exhibits, such as the human skeleton labeled “The Most Dangerous Animal of the World,” resonated strongly with Modernist and Postmodern concerns regarding alienation, self-destruction, and ethical responsibility. The ironic subversion of human superiority reflected postmodern skepticism toward grand narratives of progress.
The contrast between human destructiveness and ecological innocence transformed abstract environmental issues into personal moral questions. This perspective aligns with ecocriticism, posthuman theory, and climate fiction, all of which interrogate humanity’s role within fragile planetary systems.
Conclusion
The visit to the Regional Science Centre, Bhavnagar, reaffirmed a vital intellectual truth: science and the humanities are not opposing domains but complementary modes of understanding. Scientific knowledge gains depth when interpreted through cultural, ethical, and narrative frameworks, while literary studies gain urgency when informed by scientific perspectives.
For students of English Studies, such interdisciplinary encounters sharpen critical thinking, interpretive skill, and ethical awareness—qualities essential for engaging with contemporary literature, ecology, and technology. The visit ultimately demonstrated that science is not merely factual; it is narrative, ethical, and profoundly human.
I express my sincere gratitude to the Department of English, MKBU, and the Regional Science Centre, Bhavnagar, for facilitating such an intellectually enriching interdisciplinary experience.
Reference
Science through a Humanist’s Lens: A Social Media and Blogging Toolkit. YouTube, uploaded by PackingTubes, 21 Mar. 2023, https://youtu.be/PbidPpMe7Mo.
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