Magic, Science, and Empire in Postcolonial Literature: The Alchemical Literary Imagination

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Kathleen Renk (Northern Illinois University)

Magic, Science, and Empire in Postcolonial Literature

The Alchemical Literary Imagination

Kathleen Renk (Northern Illinois University)

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English

Routledge
06 February 2018

Literary studies: post-colonial literature

Series: Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature

"This book examines the ways in which contemporary British and British postcolonial writers in the after-empire era draw connections between magic (defined here as Renaissance Hermetic philosophy) and science. Writers such as Tom Stoppard, Zadie Smith, and Margaret Atwood critique both imperial science, or science used in service to empire, and what Renk calls ""imperical science,"" a distortion of rational science which denies that reality is holistic and claims that nature can and should be conquered. In warning of the dangers of imperical science, these writers restore the connection between magic and science as they examine major shifts in scientific thinking across the centuries. They reflect on the Copernican Revolution and the historic split between magic and science, scrutinize Darwinism, consider the relationship between Victorian science and pseudo-science, analyze twentieth-century Uncertainty theories, reject bio/genetic engineering, call for a new approach to science that reconnects science and art, and ultimately endeavor to bring an end to the imperial age. Overall, these writers forge a new discourse that merges science with the arts and emphasizes a holistic philosophy, a view shared by both Hermetic philosophy and recent scientific theories, such as chaos or complexity theory. Along with recent books that focus on the relationship between contemporary literature and science, this work focuses on contemporary British literature’s critique of science and the ways in which postcolonial literature addresses the relationship between magic, science, and empire."

By: Kathleen Renk (Northern Illinois University)
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
Weight: 453g
ISBN: 9781138547513
ISBN 10: 1138547514
Series: Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature
Pages: 184
Publication Date: 06 February 2018
Audience: College/higher education , Primary , A / AS level
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Introduction 1. The Alchemical Imagination 2. Victorian Science: Debating Darwin and Natural History 3. Hermeticism ‘Gone Underground’: Victorian Science and Pseudo Science in the Age of Empire 4. Superseding Newtonian Determinism: Chaos, Quantum Heresies and Hyperspace in Post-Imperial Literature 5. Paradise as Chaos: The Deconstruction of Determinism Conclusion Bibliography Index

Kathleen Renk is an Associate Professor of English at Northern Illinois University. The author of Caribbean Shadows and Victorian Ghosts: Women's Writing and Decolonization (Virginia, 1999) and critical essays on the work of A.S. Byatt, Wilson Harris, Peter Carey, and Pauline Melville, she teaches British modernist and postcolonial literatures. 　