IMAGINING SCIENCE
ENGLISH 404-01 (FALL 2009)
UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO

 This course looks at the intersections between literary studies and the sciences from several angles.  We begin with three essays by Emerson from the 1850s, written just before the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859) and responsive to the same advances in knowledge that contributed to Darwin’s breakthrough.  We will then read Darwin himself—selections from Origin and Descent of Man (1871)—considering the influence of 19^th-century language on the shape and style of his arguments.  Fast-forward to the 21^st century to examine Darwin’s continuing central position in debates about public education and general understanding of the human position in the universe; we’ll read the National Academies of Science 2008 publication about evolution, the judge’s opinion in the Kitzmiller v. Dover School Board court case (2005), and David Zellnik’s play Serendib (2007).  We then shift to a consideration of several recent efforts by scientists and humanities scholars to bridge C.P. Snow’s “two cultures” chasm: David and Nanelle Barash’s Madame Bovary’s Ovaries, Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate, Elof Axel Carlson’s Neither Gods Nor Beasts, Edward Slingerland’s What Science Offers the Humanities, Jonathan Gottschall’s Literature, Science, and a New Humanities, among others. In the final part of the course, we’ll discuss three novels that share a focus on embodied cognitive processes: D.M. Thomas’s The White Hotel, Toni Morrison's Beloved, and Ian McEwan’s Saturday.

Information and Reading Schedule
Links to online texts and resources
Gary Williams's home page