Experimental Life establishes the multiple ways in which Romantic authors appropriated the notion of experimentation from the natural sciences.
Winner of the Michelle Kendrick Memorial Book Prize of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, BSLS Book Prize of the British Society for Literature and Science
If the objective of the Romantic movement was nothing less than to redefine the meaning of life itself, what role did experiments play in this movement? While earlier scholarship has established both the importance of science generally and vitalism specifically, with regard to Romanticism no study has investigated what it meant for artists to experiment and how those experiments related to their interest in the concept of life.
Experimental Life draws on approaches and ideas from contemporary science studies, proposing the concept of experimental vitalism to show both how Romantic authors appropriated the concept of experimentation from the sciences and the impact of their appropriation on post-Romantic concepts of literature and art.
Robert Mitchell navigates complex conceptual arenas such as network theory, gift exchange, paranoia, and biomedia and introduces new concepts, such as cryptogamia, chylopoietic discourse, trance-plantation, and the poetics of suspension. As a result, Experimental Life is a wide-ranging summation and extension of the current state of literary studies, the history of science, cultural critique, and theory.
| ISBN: | 9781421410883 |
| Publication date: | 1st April 2014 |
| Author: | Robert Mitchell |
| Publisher: | Johns Hopkins University Press |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 320 pages |
| Genres: |
Literary theory Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 History of science Literature: history and criticism |
Experimental Life establishes the multiple ways in which Romantic authors appropriated the notion of experimentation from the natural sciences.Winner of the Michelle Kendrick Memorial Book Prize of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, BSLS Book Prize of the British Society for Literature and ScienceIf the objective of the Romantic movement was nothing less than to redefine the meaning of life itself, what role did experiments play in this movement? While earlier scholarship has established both the importance of science generally and vitalism specifically, with regard to Romanticism no study has investigated what it meant for artists to experiment and how those experiments related to their interest in the concept of life.Experimental Life draws on approaches and ideas from contemporary science studies, proposing the concept of experimental vitalism to show both how Romantic authors appropriated the concept of experimentation from the sciences and the impact of their appropriation on post-Romantic concepts of literature and art.Robert Mitchell navigates complex conceptual arenas such as network theory, gift exchange, paranoia, and biomedia and introduces new concepts, such as cryptogamia, chylopoietic discourse, trance-plantation, and the poetics of suspension.
Experimental Life features in the following genres: Literary theory, Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900, History of science, Literature: history and criticism
Hardback, Ebook. Not Available.
Experimental Life was written by Robert Mitchell and published by Johns Hopkins University Press
Experimental Life has 320 pages