Contemporary Lit and Science

Catalog description

This course considers the ways in which contemporary authors reacted to scientific revolutions such as Einstein’s relativity theories, Bohr’s theory of complementarity, and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. While focusing on the influence that an observer can have on an act of narration, we will study how this influence changed the narrative form. We will also consider the portrayal of scientific paraphernalia, such as microscopes, telescopes and lenses, as representations of science and scientific principles. While studying the reception and popular/literary engagements with these scientific theories, this course will chart the movement away from uncertainty and relativity in popular discourse, as, especially towards the early 21-st century, both popular and literary representations started to reflect the certainties of climate change.