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Book Synopsis
Across the academy, disciplines flock for scientific status, keen to demonstrate that their approach to their subject matter is "scientific." How might literary criticism achieve anything like this sort of methodological consonance? Looking at the history of twentieth-century attempts, from Northrop Frye's macrostructural systematizing and Roman Jakobson's microstructural analysis, through to the collapse of the structuralist project and the recent strategic embrace of evolutionary psychology and cognitive science, this book looks at what hopes remain for a "science" of literary criticism and draws on the work of such thinkers as Richard Dawkins, Hilary Putnam, Richard Rorty, and Kurt Vonnegut to investigate the consequences of adopting a scientific perspective toward literary study. With an increasing number of departments teaching "literature and science" courses, the question of what literary study stands to gain (and what it might risk) from cleaving to the sciences is especially pressing.

Interference Patterns: Literary Study, Scientific

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    A Hardback by Jon Adams

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      Book details

      Publisher Bucknell University Press
      Published 1 June 2007
      ISBN-13 9781611482836
      978-1611482836
      ISBN-10 1611482836

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      Across the academy, disciplines flock for scientific status, keen to demonstrate that their approach to their subject matter is "scientific." How might literary criticism achieve anything like this sort of methodological consonance? Looking at the history of twentieth-century attempts, from Northrop Frye's macrostructural systematizing and Roman Jakobson's microstructural analysis, through to the collapse of the structuralist project and the recent strategic embrace of evolutionary psychology and cognitive science, this book looks at what hopes remain for a "science" of literary criticism and draws on the work of such thinkers as Richard Dawkins, Hilary Putnam, Richard Rorty, and Kurt Vonnegut to investigate the consequences of adopting a scientific perspective toward literary study. With an increasing number of departments teaching "literature and science" courses, the question of what literary study stands to gain (and what it might risk) from cleaving to the sciences is especially pressing.

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