| Author |
Kucharzewski, Jan |
| Year |
2011 |
| Publisher |
Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter |
| Number of pages |
491 |
| ISBN |
9783825359010 |
| Keywords |
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Abstract
Back of Book:
"Propositions about Life" takes a fresh look at the difficulties that arise in any
attempt to integrate the disciplines of natural sciences and literature. The study
develops a historically inflected discussion of the sometimes cooperative, sometimes
contested relationship between literature and science in Great Britain and the United
States of America. A critical analysis of the most important methodologies and conflicts
that have emerged in the field of "Literature and Science" demonstrates how both disciplines
rely on diverging assumptions about the material world that are not as incongruent
as they might appear to be. Reading the novels of the contemporary American writer
Richard Powers as junctions between literary and scientific investigatios, Propositions
about Life furthermore suggests that the question of textual referentiality in literary
studies can profit from an interdisciplinary perspective without yielding to a naive
concept of mimesis.
