CALL FOR PAPERS: Esferas Literarias, 5 (2022)

Monographic Issue: Nineteenth-Century Literary Figurations of Scientific Discourse

 

Coordination and edition: Claudia Lora Márquez (Universidad de Cádiz)

 

       The 19th century represents a time of splendour in the History of science since, on the one hand, it attends to the final consolidation of modernity in this field and, on the other hand, encourages the emergence of disciplines considered innovative at the time, such as craniometry, the theory of hysteria by Jean-Martin Charcot or the revival of physiognomics applied to studies on criminology by Cesare Lombroso. Moreover, the technological advancement as well as the progress in the industrialization progress facilitate the invention of scientific instruments that create new types of relationships between human beings and machines. In those days of contrasting situations, while the experimental method and the positivist philosophy consolidate, alternative forms of knowledge emerge in relation to occult sciences, such as spiritism, theosophy and necromancy, among others.

       Nineteenth-Century Literary Figurations of Scientific Discourse intends to bring together articles that enable to go deeper into the topic and its connections with literature. The articles should follow one of the following approaches:

 

• Scientific utopias and dystopias. This approach concerns the forms of relationship between tradition and the new in a technologized world. It can be specified in the study of literary representations of inventions, experiments, machines and automatons. It may also include an analysis of how technical advances contribute to the general welfare and the improvement of the human condition.
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• Literature and medicine. Satire against doctors. Sick characters and disease in literature. Representations of madness, hysteria, alcoholism and non-normative sexuality. Illness understood as a trigger for genius and literary inspiration.
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• Natural sciences. Literary manifestations of evolutionism. The naturalistic novel. Literary descriptions of fauna and flora.
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• Pseudoscience. This term encompasses those doctrines that, adopting the appearance of the sciences, lack their capacity of empirical demonstration. Mesmerism, spiritism theosophy and the rest of the esoterics currents that emerged in the 19th century are part of this group.

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       For this issue we also invite contributions for the Varia section, Book Reviews and Notes.

       Submissions will be made through the journal site (Make a submission).

       Deadline for contributions: 30/04/2021.

   

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