Scientific Discourses in Literature
Bent Sørensen, E-07

The aim of this course is to investigate the representations of science in postmodern literature and to chart the presence of scientific discourses as legitimizing explanations for human activity and agency. Some of the questions we shall address are: Which types of scientific discourses proliferate in postmodern novels? What are the discourses of the hard sciences, such as physics, particularly good at capturing, compared to those of softer sciences, such as biology? What specific functions do pure science discourses culled from mathematics and logic fulfil in literature? Where is the common ground between literaure and science - in philosophy, perhaps? What are some of the relations between literature and chaos and complexity theory on the one hand and narratology on the other? What happens to representations of emotions in literature inspired by scientific world-views?

Primary texts:

Alan Lightman (1993): Einstein's Dreams (excerpts)
Andrew Crumey (1994): Music in a Foreign Language
Jonathan Lethem (1997): As She Climbed Across the Table

Secondary literature:

Lyotard: The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (1979) (excerpt)
Jean Baudrillard: “The Precession of Simulacra” (1981)
David Harvey: “Time-Space Compression and the Postmodern Condition” (1989)
Ursula Heise: Chronoschisms (1997) (excerpt)
Brian McHale: Constructing Postmodernism (1992) (excerpt)

Course plan

1. 7/9, 12-1, room 1.111: Intro-lecture: Two cultures? Narrative and scientific knowledge

Study period: Lyotard: The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (excerpt); Jean Baudrillard: “The Precession of Simulacra”; David Harvey: “Time-Space Compression and the Postmodern Condition” [Study questions here]

2. 21/9, 10-12, room 1.111: Alan Lightman: Einstein's Dreams (excerpts)
Read also: Bent Sørensen: “Physicists in the Field of Fiction”

3. NB Session postponed till Friday!! 28/9, 12-2, room 1.111: Jonathan Lethem: As She Climbed across the Table
Read also: Brian McHale: Constructing Postmodernism (excerpt)

4. 5/10, 10-1, room 1.111: Joint session on Contemporaneity (w. Jens Kirk & Lene Yding)
Read: Paul Virilio: Speed and Information: Cyberspace Alarm!
An assessment of Virilio as a reluctant postmodernist: John Armitage: Beyond Postmodernism?
Virilio bio.

5. 12/10, 12-2, room 3.015, KS1: Andrew Crumey: Music in a Foreign Language , parts 1-2
Read also Ursula Heise: Chronoschisms (excerpt)

[Study period: questions here]

6. 23/10, 10-12, room 3.015, KS1: Andrew Crumey: Music in a Foreign Language , parts 3-5

7. 2/11, 10-1, room 3.015, KS1: Joint session on Theory and Methodology (w. Jens Kirk & Lene Yding)
Read “Defining: What is Culture?” (master copy); excerpt from Matt Hills, How To Do Things With Cultural Theory, 2005