2024 AM Physics and Fiction

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  • Modul: ang622 ('Akzentsetzung'), phy355 (physikalische Wahlstudien), pb113, pb114
  • Lecturer: Petra Groß and Anna Auguscik
  • Course: 3.02.221
  • Time and Venue: regular online Stud.IP/BBB meetings, Wednesday 16-18h, and two longer sessions in presence Wednesday, 13-18h (tentatively scheduled for 29 May and 26 June)
  • Course Description:

Physics has often been understood as the opposite of fiction: formulae vs narrative; reality vs constructedness; in short, fact vs fiction. This has not discouraged writers to take this very challenge, as a long genre tradition of science fiction attests. However, the interest on the part of what is considered 'literary fiction' seems to be more recent.

In this summer semester, we offer a new interdisciplinary seminar called "Physics in contemporary fiction". In a rare setting with students from both the English and the Physics departments, we will read one full science novel and other science-related literary fiction. We want to approach questions such as: How much science is contained in these texts and how is it incorporated? How important is it for the text? Is the representation correct or plausible? What is the underlying scientific context, and how does it relate to society or politics-related discussions? How do these writings join the 'two cultures' debate? And how can (becoming) physicists and literary scholars, or teachers of either discipline, profit from such a reading? This time, our focus will be on the topic of geoengineering.

Please, buy and read the following novel:

  • Catherine Bush, Blaze Island (2020)

In addition, we will read excerpts from the following novels:

  • Face by Jaspreet Singh (2022)
  • Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson (2021)
  • The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson (2020)

PLEASE NOTE: Use the time until the beginning of term to immerse yourself in the reading of the novel and the short story anthology. Additional materials for preparation, as well as the detailed syllabus, will be made available here and/or on Stud.IP.


Online Session: 17 April

  • Introduction
  • Reading and discussion: tba

Online Session: 24 April

  • Reading and discussion: tba

Reading Week: 1 May

  • Reading and discussion: tba

Online Session: 8 May

  • Reading and discussion: tba

Online Session: 15 May

  • Reading and discussion: tba

Online Session: 22 May

  • Reading and discussion: tba

In-presence Session: 29 May

  • Reading and discussion: tba

Online Session: 5 June

  • Reading and discussion: tba

Reading Week: 12 June

  • Reading and discussion: tba

Online Session 19 June

  • Reading and discussion: tba

In-presence Session: 26 June

  • Reading and discussion: tba

Online Session: 3 July

  • discussion of lit/cult research papers 
  [Hand in research papers until 15 September 2023]

Tools

Primary Reading

  • see above

Further Reading

cf. Stud.IP/files

Literary and cultural reading

  • Literature and Science
  • Snow, C.P. Two Cultures
  • Anton Kirchhofer and Natalie Roxburgh, "The Scientist as ‘Problematic Individual’ in Contemporary Anglophone Fiction" (2016)
  • Schaffeld, ZAA
  • Engelhardt, Nina; Hoydis, Julia Representations of Science in Twenty-First-Century Fiction: Human and Temporal Connectivities. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan (London); 2019.
  • Haynes
  • Narrative Turn in Science
  • Physics in/and Fiction
  • Dihal, Kanta. "New Science, New Stories: Quantum Physics as a Narrative Trope in Contemporary Fiction." pp. 55-74 IN: Engelhardt, Nina; Hoydis, Julia Representations of Science in Twenty-First-Century Fiction: Human and Temporal Connectivities. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan (London); 2019.
  • Oppermann, Serpil. "Quantum Physics and Literature: How They Meet the Universe Halfway." Anglia: Zeitschrift für Englische Philologie ; 2015; 133(1) 87-104.
  • Vanderbeke, Dirk. "Physics." pp. 192-202 IN: Clarke, Bruce(ed.); Rossini, Manuela(ed.) The Routledge Companion to Literature and Science. London, England: Routledge; 2011. xviii, 550
  • Leane, Elizabeth. "Knowing Quanta: The Ambiguous Metaphors of Popular Physics." The Review of English Studies ; 2001 Aug; 52(207) 411-31.
  • Cain, Sarah. "The Metaphorical Field: Post-Newtonian Physics and Modernist Literature." The Cambridge Quarterly ; 1999; 28(1) 46-64.


Science reading

Quotes

Links

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