Postmodern Postures: Literature, Science and the Two Cultures Debate

ISBN-13: 9780754600954 / Angielski / Twarda / 1999 / 216 str.

Daniel Cordle

Opis

In 1996, physicist Alan Sokal placed a hoax article in "Social Text" mimicking the social constructionist view of science popular in the humanities and sparking the "science wars" which had rumbled throughout the 90s. This book puts the controversy into the context of earlier debates about the "two cultures", between F.R. Leavis and C.P. Snow, and Mathew Arnold and T.H. Huxley. Through an interrogation of interdisciplinary approaches to literature and science, and a discussion of the arguments surrounding postmodern culture, the book formulates a literary critical methodology for liteature/science criticism, highlighting both the benefits and the limitations of attempts to link the two cultures. Three case studies, focused through the issues of knowledge, identity and time, put this methodology into practice, showing how ideas resonate through culture between literature and science.

Spis treści

Contents: Introduction: Patterns and postures; Part One: Theory: The two cultures: literature versus science; Literature-science methodology and the science wars; Part Two: Practice: Discourses of knowledge: Chaotic order; Discourses of identity: machines, bodies and information; Discourses of time: purpose and absurdity; Histories: Postmodernism, literature and science; Conclusion: Advancing Together?; Bibliography; Index.

O autorze

Daniel Cordle