The Two Cultures or the Third Culture? Fiction Meets Science in 20th-Century Literatures in English 1500-SZD-TTCOTTC

The Two Cultures or the Third Culture? seminar is dedicated to students interested in science fiction, as well as in the relationship between science and literature. During the classes we discuss a number of texts (stories and book chapters) by, among other writers, H.G. Wells, A. Conan Doyle, Frederik Pohl, Connie Willis and Pamela Zoline, in the context of theories and discoveries they are fascinated by. The theory of evolution, the human evolution tree, sociobiology, quantum physics, entropy and other scientific concepts are discussed as literary motives. C. P. Snow’s The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution and John Brockman’s The Emerging Third Culture help to frame our discussions. In about 14 classes we discuss the following topics:
- The Two Cultures
C. P. Snow [Charles Percy] The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution (1959)
Stanislaw Lem His Master’s Voice [chapter 4]
- Evolution and literature
Charles Darwin from On the Origin of Species. Recapitulation of the objections to the theory of Natural Selection
H.G. Wells The Man Of The Year Million. A Scientific Forecast
KEY CONCEPTS: natural selection, survival of the fittest, adaptation, evolution
- Human evolution
H.G. Wells The Grisly Folk
Jean-Jacques Annaud. Quest for Fire [recommended movie]
Michael Chapman. The Clan of the Cave Bear [recommended movie]
KEY CONCEPTS: now-extinct primates, human evolution tree, Research into the history of the human species as a science the Neanderthals, 'out-of-Africa' migration
- Sociobiology
Edward Wilson From Sociobiology to Sociology and Sociobiology at the Century's End
Roger Jones The Island
KEY CONCEPTS: sociobiology, ethology, kin selection, adaptative behavior , cultural evolution
- Radioactivity
Pierre Curie Radioactive substances, especially radium - Nobel Lecture
Paul Preuss Half-Life
KEY CONCEPTS: models of the atom, X rays, radioactivity, the periodic table the discoveries of J.J. Thomson, Ernest Rutherford and the Curies
- Nuclear disaster
Frederik Pohl Fermi and Frost
BBC. Threads [recommended movie]
Nicholas Meyer. The Day After [recommended movie]
Jimmy T. Murakami. When the Wind Blows [recommended movie]
KEY CONCEPTS: the Fermi's paradox, the nuclear winter, explosion of the atom bomb, fallout, contamination
- Quantum Theory
Connie Willis "AT THE RIALTO"
KEY CONCEPTS: superposition of states, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, the EPR (Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen ) paradox, the Schrödinger's cat paradox, the butterfly effect, a particle detector
- Strange matter
Dr. Robert L. Foreward A Matter Most Strange
KEY CONCEPTS: neutrinos, strange matter, quarks, the Large Hadron Collider, the Higgs boson, the black hole
- Parallel Universes
George Alec Effinger Schrödinger's Kitten
KEY CONCEPTS: multiverse, parallel universes,
- Entropy
Pamela A. Zoline The Heat Death of the Universe
KEY CONCEPTS: Entropy, the laws of thermodynamics, homeostasis, energy-matter, information
- Scientists in Literature
Arthur Conan Doyle The Poison Belt
- The Third Culture
John Brockman Introduction: The Emerging Third Culture
Steven Weinberg Sokal's Hoax (1996)Edward O. Wilson Consilience. The Unity of Knowledge (selected - Chapter 12 "To What End?")
- Scientists in Contemporary Movies

Boyd, Brian, Joseph Carroll, and Jonathan Gottschell, eds, Evolution, Literature and Film (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010).

Brockman, John. The Third Culture (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995)

Brown, Donald E, Human Universals (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991).

Darwin, Charles, On the Origin of Species (New York: Bantam Dell, 1999).
- The Descent of Man And the Selection in Relation to Sex (New York: A.L. Bert Company Publishers, 1874).

Effinger, George Alec. "Schrödinger's Kitten." Omni, (September 1988).

Landau, Misia, ‘Human Evolution as Narrative’, American Scientist 72:262-268 (1984)

Oramus, Dominika. "Orangutans, Savages, and Babies: Darwin’s Problem with Human Ancestry as Reflected in Recent Fiction." in Grażyna Bystydzieńska and Emma Harris, eds, From Queen Anne to Queen Victoria. Readings in 18th and 19th century British literature and culture. Vol. 4 (Warszawa: Ośrodek Studiów Brytyjskich, 2014), 407-420.

Preiss, Byron (ed). The Microverse (New York, Toronto, London, Sidney, Auckland: Bantam Books, 1989).
[chapters by Philip Morrison, Dr. Robert L. Foreward, Connie Willis, Paul Preuss]

Pohl, Frederik. "Fermi and Frost." Asimov's (January 1985)

Rhodes, Richard. Making of the Atomic Bomb. (New York, Sydney, Toronto, Delhi: Simon and Schuster, 1986).

Sokal, Alan, ‘Transgressing the Boundaries. An Afterword’, Descent 43/4 (1996), 93-94.
-‘A plea for reason, evidence and logic’, New Politics 7/2 (1997), 126-129.

Snow, C. P. The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1961)

Weinberg, Steven. 1996 "Sokal's Hoax", in: The New York Review of Books, Volume XLIII, No. 13, pp 11-15, August 8, 1996. www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/weinberg.html.

Wells, G.H., ‘The Grisly Folk’< http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0602061.txt
- 'The Man Of The Year Million. A Scientific Forecast' Pall Mall Budget, no. 1312 (November 16, 1893): 1796-97
Wilson, Edward O., Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (Cambridge Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000).
- Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998).

Zoline, Pamela A. The Heat Death of the Universe and Other Stories (New York: McPherson & Co Publishers, 2002)

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