Propositions about Life

'Propositions about Life: Reengaging Literature and Science' takes a fresh look at the difficulties that arise in any attempt to integrate the disciplines of natural sciences and literature. The study develops a historically inflected discussion of the sometimes cooperative, sometimes contested relationship between literature and science in Great Britain and the United States of America. A critical analysis of the most important methodologies and conflicts that have emerged in the field of 'Literature and Science' demonstrates how both disciplines rely on diverging assumptions about the material world that are not as incongruent as they might appear to be. Reading the novels of the contemporary American writer Richard Powers as junctions between literary and scientific investigations, 'Propositions about Life' furthermore suggests that the question of textual referentiality in literary studies can profit from an interdisciplinary perspective without yielding to a naive concept of mimesis.