Imaginative Resonances: Literature and Science in the 19th-century America 4219-AW217
The lecture offers a selective survey of the influence the nineteenth century science exerted on American letters. Living in an age of
dynamic scientific discoveries, new disciplinary interests, radical intellectual upheavals, technological invention, and the industrialization of everyday life, the nineteenth-century writers took active interest in scientific theories as well as their social, cultural, political and spiritual reverberations. The lecture organizes its thematic concerns around the selected spheres of nineteenth-century scientific endeavors (for instance, astronomy, chemistry, life sciences, magnetism, physics, social sciences) looking at their resonances through the lens of contemporaneous literature, which often shaped their popular reception. To demonstrate the connections, fiction, poetry and essays by the following writers will be discussed, along the respective scientific theories: Edward Bellamy, Anna Bowman Dodd, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry James, Herman Melville, Elizabeth
Peabody, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry David Thoreau, Mark Twain, and Walt Whitman.
Type of course
elective monographs
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
Upon completing the course student:
1. knows the themes of significant scientific and technological endeavors in the 19th-century America and is able to see their influence on American culture of the time
2. knows examples of specific influence of scientific concepts on literature in the 19th-century USA
3. is able to offer readings of literary representations by means of the acquired interpretative tools
4. understands the ethical dimensions of theories treated as scientific, their influence on social life and power relations
Assessment criteria
Written exam consisting of two parts:
1) Quiz surveying the most important issues from the lecture
2) Interpretation of chosen literary fragments discussed in the course of the lecture
The passing limit is 65% of all points.
Grade scale (in percentage)
100-97% 5!
96-91% 5
90-84% 4+
83-78% 4
77-68% 3+
67-60% 3
59-0% 2
Practical placement
None
Bibliography
Selected Literature
Buell, Lawrence (ed). American Transcendentalists: Essential Writings. Modern Library, 2006.
Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2016
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. New York: The Modern Library, 2000
Fuller, Margaret. The Portable Margaret Fuller. Penguin Classics, 1995
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Collected Novels. New York: Library of America, 1983
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Tales and Sketches. New York: Library of America, 1982
Holmes, Oliver Wendel. The Essential Holmes: Selections form the Letters, Speeches, Judicial Opinions and Other Writings of Oliver
Wendell Holmes, Jr. University of Chicago Press, 1992
James, Henry. Collected Stories, Vols. 1-2. London: Everyman, 1999
James, Henry. Novels 1881-1886. New York: Library of America, 1989
James, Henry. Novels 1886-1890. New York: Library of America, 1989
James, Henry. Novels 1903-1911. New York: Library of America, 1989
James, William. Writings 1902-1910. New York: Library of America, 1988
James, William. The Principles of Psychology, Vols. 1-2. Dover Publications, 2000.
Melville, Herman. Complete Poems. New York: Library of America, 2019
Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2018.
Melville, Herman. Typee, Omoo, Mardi. New York: Library of America, 1982
Poe, Edgar Allan. The Selected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004
Thoreau, Henry David. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Walden, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod. New York: Library of
America, 1985
Twain, Mark. Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, and Essays, Vols 1-2. New York: Library of America, 1992
Twain, Mark. Mississippi Writings. New York: Library of America, 1982
Whitman, Walt. Complete Poetry and Collected Prose. New York: Library of America, 1982
Additional information
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