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Summary

Chapter 1 makes the case for literature’s value to science policy and reveals how literary scholars can enter the field. With the growth of interdisciplinary policy committees, which draw on experts from all across the university and the public sphere, humanists have the opportunity to speak to urgent questions about the social implications of science. Because culture affects public attitudes toward science, policy committees need the expertise of humanists who study literature, film, myth, metaphor, and symbolic structures to strengthen their understanding of cultural influences on policy concerns. Literary study brings new archives, new methods, new approaches to scientific language, and new pedagogies to the field of public policy. Focusing on Ian McEwan’s novel Saturday, the chapter shows how a novel can deepen our understanding of an important policy issue like the misguided belief in genetic determinism.

Viewed from the perspective of the nineteenth century there is little in the details of contemporary political life that would seem special. Tensions between great powers, ethnic and religious divisions, trade rivalries, economic recessions, currency crises, civil unrest, etc. are all part of the fabric of the modern world. Social life in the West has been marked by the dissolution of families and communities into voluntary and market associations of individuals; but while that was a distinctive feature of the twentieth century and has extended into the twenty-first, it is a continuation of trends well-established in previous times principally through industrialisation and urbanisation.

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Chapter 1 - A New Project for the Humanities

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Scientism and its Challenge to Humanism

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2 results

Chapter 1 - A New Project for the Humanities

Summary

Scientism and its Challenge to Humanism