Experimental Life: Vitalism in Romantic Science and Literature

by Robert Mitchell

Overview

Experimental Life establishes the multiple ways in which Romantic authors appropriated the notion of experimentation from the natural sciences.

Winner of the Michelle Kendrick Memorial Book Prize of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, BSLS Book Prize of the British Society for Literature and Science

If the objective of the Romantic movement was nothing less than to redefine the meaning of life itself, what role did experiments play in this movement? While earlier scholarship has established both the importance of science generally and vitalism specifically, with regard to Romanticism no study has investigated what it meant for artists to experiment and how those experiments related to their interest in the concept of life.

Experimental Life draws on approaches and ideas from contemporary science studies, proposing the concept of experimental vitalism to show both how Romantic authors appropriated the concept of experimentation from the sciences and the impact of their appropriation on post-Romantic concepts of literature and art.

Robert Mitchell navigates complex conceptual arenas such as network theory, gift exchange, paranoia, and biomedia and introduces new concepts, such as cryptogamia, chylopoietic discourse, trance-plantation, and the poetics of suspension. As a result, Experimental Life is a wide-ranging summation and extension of the current state of literary studies, the history of science, cultural critique, and theory.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781421410883
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	12/16/2013
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	945,341
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Robert Mitchell is a professor of English and director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Science and Cultural Theory at Duke University. He is author of Sympathy and the State in the Romantic Era: Systems, State Finance, and the Shadows of Futurity.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction Three Eras of Experimental Vitalism 1

1 Romanticism, Art, and Experiments 14

2 Suspended Animation and the Poetics of Trance 43

3 Life, Orientation, and Abandoned Experiments 74

4 Nausea, Digestion, and the Collapsurgence of System 104

5 The Media of Life 144

6 Cryptogamia 190

Conclusion Biopolitics and Experimental Vitalism 218

Notes 231

Bibliography 271

Index 295

What People are Saying About This

Denise Gigante

A superb and outstandingly researched study.

From the Publisher

A superb and outstandingly researched study.
—Denise Gigante, Stanford University

Editorial Reviews

Theoretically informed and inventive, Experimental Life is one of those good books that links the concerns of Romantic scholars to broader discussions in the arts and sciences.
—Adela Pinch, Studies in English Literature

In addition to its compelling history of experimentation in art and science, Experimental Life also marks many before unapprehended relations among different sectors of Romantic studies, and will no doubt generate a good deal of further experiments with Romantic literature and science-which, as Mitchell proposes, is what marks any experiment's real success.
—Studies in Romanticism

Mitchell's book displays wide erudition and an ambitious interdisciplinary agenda.
—Modern Language Quarterly

From the Publisher

In addition to its compelling history of experimentation in art and science, Experimental Life also marks many before unapprehended relations among different sectors of Romantic studies, and will no doubt generate a good deal of further experiments with Romantic literature and science-which, as Mitchell proposes, is what marks any experiment's real success.

Studies in Romanticism

Mitchell's book displays wide erudition and an ambitious interdisciplinary agenda.

J. Modern Language Quarterly

Theoretically informed and inventive, Experimental Life is one of those good books that links the concerns of Romantic scholars to broader discussions in the arts and sciences.

Studies in English Literature - Adela Pinch