Open Fields: Science in Cultural Encounter [Paperback]

Gillian Beer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 13, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0198186355 | ISBN-13: 978-0198186359

Science always raises more questions than it can contain. These challenging essays explore how ideas are transformed as they come under the stress of unforeseen readers. Using a wealth of material from diverse nineteenth- and twentieth-century writing, Beer tracks encounters between science, literature, and other forms of emotional experience. Her analysis discloses issues of change, gender, nation, and desire. A substantial group of the essays centers on Darwin; other essays look at Hardy, Helmholtz, Hopkins, Clerk Maxwell, and Woolf. The collection throws a different light on Victorian experience and the rise of modernism and engages with current controversies about the place of science in culture.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Essential reading for anyone interested in the relation of literature and science."--Nineteenth-Century Literature

"From her sensitive discussions of Darwin's writing style,...to her more polemical interventions...Beer is careful to maintain a productive tension in her various deductions and claims. All in all, a fine and instructive collection."--Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900

About the Author

Gillian Beer is at Clare Hall, Cambridge.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (May 13, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198186355
• ISBN-13: 978-0198186359
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,843,221 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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