SCIENCE AND LITERATURE BOOK

A CALL FOR ARTICLES

Dr C.C. Barfoot and Dr Valeria Tinkler are planning to edit a volume of
essays on Science and Literature, partly based on papers given at the
Leiden October Conference in 1999 but also upon new commissions.

Even before the Renaissance provoked a new appetite for scientific
investigation, such characters as wizards and alchemists stirred the
imaginations of poets and romancers. However, from the beginning of the
seventeenth century onwards the notion of organized scientific
experimentation gathered support and strength and this stimulated
sympathy as well as reaction amongst writers. At the beginning of the
century, John Dryden was one of the early members of the Royal Society.
But although Dryden's Augustan successors, Pope and Swift, were deeply
critical of the role that science was beginning to play, poets and
essayists, theologians and philosophers were increasingly influenced by
the ideas of Newton and others throughout the eighteenth century. This
culminated in such associations of manufacturers and scientists,
preachers and poets as the Lunar Society. Indeed, it could be argued
that the early stages of Romanticism were inspired both by current
science and earlier literature. Ever since that period, science and
literature have been regarded at different times as deadly rivals or as
creative collaborators. This conference will attempt to deal with as
many aspects of this relationship as possible from the Middle Ages to
the present day. Contributors are invited to deal with any of these
issues either in a general theoretical way or with very specific
instances in mind: ideally article will combine the general with the
particular in illuminating ways, focusing on specific case histories,
perhaps, and on the relationship of individual writers to science and of
certain scientists to literary figures of their day. Large issues and
small should be put under the microscope; and literary history and
scientific history jointly surveyed.

Prospective contributors to the volume are invited to submit proposals
for articles (a topic and title at least, and, if possible, a 100-150
word summary) by 1 October 2005 (although later proposals may still be
considered) to Dr C.C. Barfoot: c.c.barfoot_at_umail.leidenuniv.nl.

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Received on Fri Jul 08 2005 - 10:25:22 EDT