Sina Farzin

Susan M. Gaines

Roslynn D. Haynes

“Science in fiction,” “geek novels,” “lab-lit”—whatever one calls them, a new generation of science novels has opened a space in which the reading public can experience and think about the powers of science to illuminate nature as well as to generate and mitigate social change and risks. Under the Literary Microscope examines the implications of the discourse taking place in and around this creative space. Exploring works by authors as disparate as Barbara Kingsolver, Richard Powers, Ian McEwan, Ann Patchett, Margaret Atwood, and Michael Crichton, these essays address the economization of scientific institutions; ethics, risk, and gender disparity in scientific work; the reshaping of old stereotypes of scientists; science in an evolving sci-fi genre; and reader reception and potential contributions of the novels to public understandings of science. Under the Literary Microscope illuminates the new ways in which fiction has been grappling with scientific issues—from climate change and pandemics to artificial intelligence and genomics—and makes a valuable addition to both contemporary literature and science studies courses. In addition to the editors, the contributors include Anna Auguscik, Jay Clayton, Carol Colatrella, Sonja Fücker, Raymond Haynes, Luz María Hernández Nieto, Emanuel Herold, Karin Hoepker, Anton Kirchhofer, Antje Kley, Natalie Roxburgh, Uwe Schimank, Sherryl Vint, and Peter Weingart.

Science and Society in the Contemporary Novel

Under the Literary Microscope

The Influence of Science on His Thought

H. G. Wells, Discoverer of the Future

Introduction -- Evil alchemists and Doctor Faustus -- Bacon's new scientists -- Foolish virtuosi -- Newton: a scientist for God -- Arrogant and godless: scientists in eighteenth-century satire -- Inhuman scientists: the romantic perception -- Frankenstein and the creature -- Victorian scientists: doubt and struggle -- The scientist as adventurer -- Efficiency and power: the scientist under scrutiny -- The scientist as hero -- Mad, bad, and dangerous to know: reality overtakes fiction -- The impersonal scientist -- Scientia gratia scientiae: the amoral scientist -- Pandora's box -- Robots, cyborgs, androids and clones: who is in control? -- The scientist as woman -- Idealism and conscience -- Watershed: the new scientists

The Scientist in Western Culture

From Madman to Crime Fighter

A study of the scientist in Western culture, from medieval images of alchemists to present-day depictions of cyberpunks and genetic engineers. They were mad, of course. Or evil. Or godless, amoral, arrogant, impersonal, and inhuman. At best, they were well intentioned but blind to the dangers of forces they barely controlled. They were Faust, Frankenstein, Jekyll, Moreau, Caligari, Strangelove—the scientists of film and fiction, cultural archetypes that reflected ancient fears of tampering with the unknown or unleashing the little-understood powers of nature. In From Madman to Crime Fighter, Roslynn D. Haynes analyzes stereotypical characters—including the mad scientist, the cold-blooded pursuer of knowledge, the intrepid pathbreaker, and the bumbling fool—that, from medieval times to the present day, have been used to depict the scientist in Western literature and film. She also describes more realistically drawn scientists, characters who are conscious of their public responsibility to expose dangers from pollution and climate change yet fearful of being accused of lacking evidence. Drawing on examples from Britain, America, Germany, France, Russia, and elsewhere, Haynes explores the persistent folklore of mad doctors of science and its relation to popular fears of a depersonalized, male-dominated, and socially irresponsible pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. She concludes that today’s public response to science and scientists—much of it negative—is best understood by recognizing the importance of such cultural archetypes and their significance as myth. From Madman to Crime Fighter is the most comprehensive study of the image of the scientist in Western literature and film.

Roslynn Haynes

They were mad, of course. Or evil. Or godless, amoral, arrogant, impersonal, and inhuman. At best, they were well-intentioned but blind to the dangers of forces they barely controlled. They were Faust and Frankenstein, Jekyll and Moreau, Caligari and Strangelove--the scientists of film and fiction, cultural archetypes that reflected ancient fears of tampering with the unknown or unleashing the little-understood powers of nature. In From Faust to Strangelove Roslyn Haynes offers the first detailed and comprehensive study of the image of the scientist in Western literature and film--from medieval images of alchemists to present-day depictions of cyberpunks and genetic engineers.

Roslynn D. Haynes

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