Lehmann, Zoe Christina (2023). Travelling Language: Scientific Discourses in Contemporary British Science Fiction (Unpublished). (Habilitation, English Department, Phil Hist)
Full text not available from this repository. (Request a copy)This study is about the ways science fiction speaks about science. Moreover, it is a study about how science speaks about itself. It will make the claim that literary criticism is central to uncovering and articulating the narrative structures that weave through the discourses of science and knowledge production. Today’s discussions in academia are interested not so much in unpacking the ‘two cultures’ debate further, as in finding the tools for reconciling the various discourses. One of these tools, of course, must be language. Practitioners must find ways of translating concepts into terms understandable to (and accepted by) each other. This study makes the suggestion that science fiction (SF) is a suitable negotiator in this process of translation. Through this study, I will suggest that SF literature is a genre through which both science and the humanities travel, and their concepts are translated into other discursive forms. SF is a creative response to both science and the concerns of the humanities, such as philosophy. This is a response which illuminates the creative potential in all these disciplines. SF not only offers new perspectives on science, but provides a new set of language games through which science can be understood. SF interacts with and makes use of the narrative structures that underlie scientific knowledge production, but which often go unacknowledged. Literary criticism, by extension, provides the tools with which to describe and make sense of these structures.
Item Type: |
Thesis (Habilitation) |
|---|---|
Division/Institute: |
06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Linguistics and Literary Studies > Institute of English Languages and Literatures 06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Linguistics and Literary Studies > Institute of English Languages and Literatures > Modern English Literature |
UniBE Contributor: |
Lehmann, Zoe Christina |
Subjects: |
800 Literature, rhetoric & criticism > 820 English & Old English literatures 400 Language > 420 English & Old English languages |
Language: |
English |
Submitter: |
Zoe Christina Lehmann Imfeld |
Date Deposited: |
31 Oct 2023 14:04 |
Last Modified: |
31 Oct 2023 14:04 |
URI: |
https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/188393 |
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