Utopian literature and science
Subtitle: from the scientific revolution to Brave New World and beyond
By: Patrick Parrinder, Emeritus Professor of English, University of Reading, UK
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: 2015
Place of publication: Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire
Language: eng
ISBN-13: 9781137456779
Subjects: Utopias in literature; Science fiction; LITERARY CRITICISM / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh; LITERARY CRITICISM / General; LITERARY CRITICISM / Science Fiction & Fantasy; History and criticism; Literature and science
Description: "Scientific progress is usually seen as a precondition of modern utopias, but science and utopia are frequently at odds. Utopian Literature and Science traces the interactions of sciences such as astronomy, microscopy, genetics and anthropology with 19th- and 20th-century utopian and dystopian writing and modern science fiction. Ranging from Galileo's observations with the telescope to current ideas of the post-human and the human-animal boundary, the author's re-examination of key literary texts brings a fresh perspective to the paradoxes of utopian thinking since Plato. This book is essential reading for teachers and students of literature and science studies, utopian studies, and science fiction studies, as well as students of 19th and early 20th-century literature more generally"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note:; title: PrefaceAcknowledgements1. IntroductionPART I: SCIENCES OF OBSERVATION AND INTERVENTION2. Beyond the Telescope: From Astronomy to (Dystopian) Fiction3. A Sylph under the Microscope: Science and Romance4. Satanism and Genetics: Haldane's Daedalus and Its BegettersPART II: THE HUMAN ANIMAL5. Eugenics, Utopia, Eudemonics: Bellamy, Galton and Morris6. Strains of the Non-Human: The Coming Race, A Crystal Age, Erewhon7. Gorilla Warfare: Darwin, Freud, and the Stone Age Romance8. From Human to Animal: Wells and KafkaPART III: MODERN UTOPIAS AND POST-HUMAN WORLDS9. War is Peace: Conscription and Mobilisation in the Modern Utopia10. Towards the Singularity? Capek's R.U.R. and its Times11. Olaf Stapledon and the Shape of Things to Come12. The Expulsion of the PoetsNotesBibliographyIndex.