My Double-Diaspora: Two Natures, Two Cultures and reposing the enduring image of C. P. Snow’s “bridge”

This work responds to the theme of writing from the fringes by exploring the author’s experience of being doubly-diasporic across STEM and HASS scholarship, and by relating this situation to what Bruno Latour considers “being modern” and to what Michel Foucault describes as the modern paradox. This article does three things. Firstly, this work presents a piece of scholarly writing in an academic style that rereads and rewrites C. P. Snow’s Rede Lecture on science and humanities disciplines, which Snow infamously called “the two cultures”. Secondly, this article presents a piece of creative writing in the form of autobiographical metafiction, which also rereads and rewrites C. P. Snow’s 1959 Rede Lecture, but this time, by telling the author’s own story of double- diaspora or of two natures, two cultures. And finally this article considers how its academic and creative works open onto one another to repose the question of being modern (as in poststructuralism and STS) with a view to telling the author’s story and critique of being modern in such a way that these can be heard by STEM and HASS. Some implications of this work for metafiction and for creative writing as a mode of academic inquiry are discussed.