The Cambridge Companion to Literature and Science

by Steven Meyer (Editor)

Overview

In 1959, C. P. Snow lamented the presence of what he called the 'two cultures': the apparently unbridgeable chasm of understanding and knowledge between modern literature and modern science. In recent decades, scholars have worked diligently and often with great ingenuity to interrogate claims like Snow's that represent twentieth- and twenty-first-century literature and science as radically alienated from each other. The Cambridge Companion to Literature and Science offers a roadmap to developments that have contributed to the demonstration and emergence of reciprocal connections between the two domains of inquiry. Weaving together theory and empiricism, individual chapters explore major figures - Shakespeare, Bacon, Emerson, Darwin, Henry James, William James, Whitehead, Einstein, Empson, and McClintock; major genres and modes of writing - fiction, science fiction, non-fiction prose, poetry, and dramatic works; and major theories and movements - pragmatism, critical theory, science studies, cognitive science, ecocriticism, cultural studies, affect theory, digital humanities, and expanded empiricisms. This book will be a key resource for scholars, graduate students, and undergraduate students alike.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781108546973
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	05/03/2018
Series:	Cambridge Companions to Literature
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Steven Meyer is Associate Professor of English at Washington University, St Louis. He is the author of Irresistible Dictation: Gertrude Stein and the Correlations of Writing and Science (2003). He has co-edited a special issue of Configurations on the surge of interest in Whitehead's 'process philosophy' among practitioners of science studies and Literature and Science. He recently served on the Executive Committee of the Modern Language Association Division on Literature and Science (2011–16; chair, 2014–15). He has also been awarded fellowships by Yale's Whitney Humanities Center, the Stanford Humanities Center, and Rutger's Center for Cultural Analysis.

Table of Contents

Introduction Steven Meyer; Part I. Glimpses of Present and Future: Literature and Science Studies: 1. Science fiction to science studies Isabelle Stengers; Part II. Snapshots of The Past: Literature and Science: 2. Shakespeare and modern science Mary Baine Campbell; 3. Darwin and literature Devin Griffiths; 4. William James, Henry James, and the impact of science Joan Richardson; 5. Empson's Einstein: science and modern reading Kitt Price; Part III. In Theory: Literary Studies and Science Studies: 6. Science studies and literary theory Hugh Crawford; 7. From writing science to digital humanities Haun Saussy and Tim Lenoir; 8. Science studies as cultural studies James J. Bono; 9. Reading affect: literature and science after Klein and Tomkins Adam Frank; Part IV. In Practice: Literary Studies and Science: 10. The global turn: Thoreau and the sixth extinction Wai Chee Dimock; 11. Literary studies and cognitive science Alan Richardson; 12. Modernism, technology, and the life sciences Tim Armstrong; 13. The long history of cognitive practices: literacy, numeracy, aesthetics Reviel Netz; Futures past and present: literature and science in an age of Whitehead Steven Meyer.