CFP: Modernists Writing and Science / "Psuedo-Science" (5/5/05; MSA, 10/21/05-10/24/05)

Modernist Studies Association 7th Annual Conference
November 3-6, 2005
Chicago, Illinois

Connections between Modernisms and the sciences have been well-explored by critics in works such as Holly Henry’s Virginia Woolf and the Discourse of Science: The Aesthetics of Astronomy (Cambridge, 2003), or Daylanne K. English’s Unnatural Selections: Eugenics in American Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance (UNC Press, 2004) as well as Donald Child’s Modernism and Eugenics: Woolf, Yeats, and the Culture of Degeneration (Cambridge, 2001).

This panel seeks to examine the relationship between Modernist writers’ so-called scientific or psuedo-scientific writing and their existence as authors, public intellectuals, or cultural critics.

Questions that this panel might ask include:
• What role do these scientific writings play in understanding the artistic efforts of a Modernist?
• Did the artist see his or her scientific production as separate from or integral to his or her artistic production?
• What did the writer feel she or he could accomplish through scientific writings that could not be accomplished through fiction, poetry, drama, or some other media?
• How were these scientific writings received at the time?
• How are they used critically now by scholars?
• Can these scientific writings shed any insight on more popular or critically lauded works?

Obviously, many other avenues of exploration are welcome. I am particularly interested in papers that explore a Modernist’s own scientific or psuedo-scientific writing.

For example, although best known as a writer of historical fiction dealing with the Midwest and and Southwestern, Conrad Richter produced two scientific works, Human Vibration: The Mechanics of Life and Mind (1925) and Principles of Bio-Physics: The Underlying Processes Controlling Life Phenomena and Inner Evolution (1927) that he felt were central to understanding his fiction; yet, neither of these works receives any critical attention.

Please send a paper title, 500 word abstract, contact information, and a brief 2-3 scholarly biography (for use in the panel proposal to MSA) to:

Dr. Marianne Cotugno
cotugnm_at_muohio.edu
or
mariannecotugno_at_hotmail.com

I will confirm receipt of each submission.

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Received on Wed Apr 27 2005 - 10:23:02 EDT