Cambridge University Press The Cambridge Companion to Literature and Science (Cambridge Companions to Literature)

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. Review 'The Cambridge Companion to Literature and Science is a serious, substantial, and illuminating volume. The contributors are among the most highly regarded and influential scholars in their respective areas of expertise in literature and science. Together, their contributions provide a comprehensive, consistently informative, and frequently enlightening survey of what is an extremely varied and theoretically challenging interdisciplinary field. The volume will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars working in any area of literature and sciences studies.' Paul Peppis, University of Oregon'… original, transformative, and enormously valuable as a fresh perspective on the field.' Martin Willis, The British Society for Literature and Science Reviews (www.bsls.ac.uk)'It is an inclusive and urgent gathering of work, which presents an innovative and transformative broadening of the field of Literature and Science in the twenty-first century.' Gemma Curto, Notes and Queries Book Description This Companion shows how literature and science inform one another and that they're more closely aligned than they typically appear. 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.