| Editor |
Maniez, Clare et al |
| Year |
2012 |
| Publisher |
Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing |
| ISBN |
9781443835190 |
| Number of pages |
220 |
| Keywords |
|
Abstract
Amazon (2013):
Since its origin, American literature has always had an uneasy relationship with science:
born at a time when science was becoming a profession, it repeatedly referred to it,
implicitly or explicitly, in order to assert its difference or, on the contrary, to
gain a certain form of legitimacy. The purpose of this book is to show how scientific
discourse informs literary writing, and to consider the relationship the two types
of discourse have maintained: mutual metaphorization, questioning or legitimating.
Focusing on the literary production of the United States in the 20th and 21st centuries,
the book is organized in four parts: the first one, which concerns the works of Henry
Adams and Thomas Pynchon, examines the way in which literature writes a history of
science; the second deals with the relationship between literature and the developing
field of neurosciences, first from a theoretical perspective, then through the study
of science-fiction novels; the third one includes essays which, one way or another,
raise the issue of the ethics of science and offer a literary answer to the dilemmas
raised by scientific progress; the two essays in the last part analyze how digital
technology has influenced recent American writing and the consequences of this new
mode on reading procedures.
