The Scientist as ‘Problematic Individual’ in Contemporary Anglophone Fiction

Kirchhofer, Anton; Roxburgh, Natalie

doi:10.1515/zaa-2016-0016

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…It posited, sometimes implicitly, sometimes explicitly, that literary fiction might have the power to produce such 'better stories about science' -that the stories told in fictional narratives might hold insights and enable perspectives which would, along the way, result in allowing readers to develop more differentiated, more complex as well as sometimes more informed 'understandings' and 'engagements' with science, presenting not merely the rewards and incentives but also, and prominently, the practical and financial pressures and obstacles, the mixtures of teamwork and competition found in laboratories and research institutes, the multiple demands and expectations on the part of different parts of the public, of funders, politicians, and media, and the complexities of keeping all this concealed or getting it communicated as the situations might require. The idea was that the special properties of the novel, instead of being reduced to the purposes of science communication, might have the effect of enabling communication about science with a difference (see Gaines et al 2013; see also Kirchhofer and Auguscik 2017;and Kirchhofer and Roxburgh 2016).…”

Section: Better Stories About Science? Working With the Inter-and Meta-discursive Dimensions Of Narrative Fictionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Better Stories about Science?

Kirchhofer¹

2021

Anglistik

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My contribution will address aspects of 'Literature and Science Studies' as interdisciplinary practice, and its focus will be on practical aspects. I shall present considerations that have made it possible to articulate research perspectives of interdisciplinary relevance, as a basis for building collaborative projects that not only involve researchers from several disciplinary backgrounds, but also integrate practitioners from non-academic areas of discursive practice. I will at times refer to theoretical positions and methodological reflections that are useful for illustrating ways of conceptualising and operationalising interdisciplinary research perspectives, but without implying that other theoretical positions or methodological choices are not workable or legitimate. And I will conclude by offering a selective engagement with Rita Felski's Uses of Literature (2008) in order to exemplify ways in which interdisciplinary practices can lead not only to critical reflections, but also to innovative accounts of conceptions and practices that are key to our own discipline of literary scholarship. Indeed, it is part of my argument that one major incentive for devising productive instances of interdisciplinarity might lie in their disciplinary benefit -interdisciplinarity as a way of obtaining greater clarity both on the cultural status and functions of the materials that we study, and of the disciplinary practices that we implement.What I will present, then, is in no way a finished and static recipe book, but rather reflections on what has worked in particular instances and situations and could serve as points of departure that would need to be developed further and adapted to new instances and situations. It is a question of identifying the contributions that literary scholarship can uniquely make in contexts where the research objectives go beyond the disciplinary priorities which are generally defined in literary studies, and at the same time gaining new research angles that speak to these disciplinary positions. How can we develop research perspectives where a detailed and differentiated literary analysis becomes 'relevant,' as we highlight how literary narratives offer complex critical engagements with issues that are virulent in other public or academic discourses, and with the ways in which these issues are represented and addressed in those settings? And how, in turn, can such engagements feed back into our own critical and scholarly practice, refining and sharpening its focus as well as broadening and deepening its analytical scope?My remarks are informed by my experience as a member of the research group Fiction Meets Science (FMS; see www.fictionmeetsscience.org), which has been funded by the Volkswagen Foundation since 2013, in a funding format designed, among other things, to promote interdisciplinary collaboration as a way of highlighting the potentials of the

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Section: Better Stories About Science? Working With the Inter-and Meta-discursive Dimensions Of Narrative Fictionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Better Stories about Science?

Kirchhofer¹

2021

Anglistik

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“…In contrast to public media reports about scientists in extreme situations, some contemporary novels are invested in stories about science and scientists for their own sake. Such "science novels" (Schaffeld 2016;Kirchhofer and Roxburgh 2016) often represent scientific expeditions as a particular practice for producing scientific knowledge with a similar detail and complexity they devote to representations of labwork. This interest may not be matched by the entire genre spectrum of the science novel.…”

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confidence: 99%