Lara Pauline Karpenko (Editor)
Shalyn Rae Claggett (Editor)
University of Michigan Press
Publication date: 2016
Language: English
Physical Details: 312 pp.
The essays in Strange Science examine marginal, fringe, and unconventional forms of scientific inquiry, as well as their cultural representations, in the Victorian period. Although now relegated to the category of the pseudoscientific, fields like mesmerism and psychical research captured the imagination of the Victorian public. Conversely, many branches of science now viewed as uncontroversial, such as physics and botany, were often associated with unorthodox methods of inquiry. Whether ultimately incorporated into mainstream scientific thought or categorized by 21st century historians as pseudo- or even anti-scientific, these sciences generated conversation, enthusiasm, and controversy within Victorian society. To date, scholarship addressing Victorian pseudoscience tends to focus either on a particular popular science within its social context or on how mainstream scientific practice distinguished itself from more contested forms. Strange Science takes a different approach by placing a range of sciences in conversation with one another and examining the similar unconventional methods of inquiry adopted by both now-established scientific fields and their marginalized counterparts during the Victorian period. In doing so, Strange Science reveals the degree to which scientific discourse of this period was radically speculative, frequently attempting to challenge or extend the apparent boundaries of the natural world. This interdisciplinary collection will appeal to scholars in the fields of Victorian literature, cultural studies, the history of the body, and the history of science.
...MoreReview Matthew Stanley (2017) Review of "Strange Science: Investigating the Limits of Knowledge in the Victorian Age". Annals of Science: The History of Science and Technology (pp. 240-241).
Chapter Anna Maria Jones (2017) Inductive Science, Literary Theory, and the Occult in Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s “Suggestive” System. In: Strange Science: Investigating the Limits of Knowledge in the Victorian Age (pp. 215-235).
Chapter Suzanne Raitt (2017) Immoral Science in The Picture of Dorian Gray. In: Strange Science: Investigating the Limits of Knowledge in the Victorian Age (pp. 164-178).
Chapter Tamara Ketabgian (2017) The Energy of Belief: The Unseen Universe, and the Spirit of Thermodynamics. In: Strange Science: Investigating the Limits of Knowledge in the Victorian Age (pp. 254-278).
Chapter James Emmott (2017) Performing Phonographic Physiology. In: Strange Science: Investigating the Limits of Knowledge in the Victorian Age (pp. 125-144).
Chapter Lynn Voskuil (2017) Victorian Orchids and the Forms of Ecological Society. In: Strange Science: Investigating the Limits of Knowledge in the Victorian Age (pp. 19-39).
Chapter Sumangala Bhattacharya (2017) The Victorian Occult Atom: Annie Besant and Clairvoyant Atomic Research. In: Strange Science: Investigating the Limits of Knowledge in the Victorian Age (pp. 197-214).
Chapter Elizabeth Chang (2017) Killer Plants of the Late Nineteenth Century. In: Strange Science: Investigating the Limits of Knowledge in the Victorian Age (pp. 81-102).
Chapter Danielle Coriale (2017) Reading through Deafness: Francis Galton and the Strange Science of Psychophysics. In: Strange Science: Investigating the Limits of Knowledge in the Victorian Age (pp. 105-124).
Chapter Lara Karpenko; Shalyn Claggett (2017) Introduction. In: Strange Science: Investigating the Limits of Knowledge in the Victorian Age (pp. 1-16).
Chapter Lara Karpenko (2017) “So Extraordinary a Bond”: Mesmerism and Sympathetic Identification in Charles Adams’s Notting Hill Mystery. In: Strange Science: Investigating the Limits of Knowledge in the Victorian Age (pp. 145-163).
Chapter Barri J. Gold (2017) Chaotic Fictions: Nonlinear Effects in Victorian Science and Literature. In: Strange Science: Investigating the Limits of Knowledge in the Victorian Age (pp. 181-196).
Chapter L. Anne Delgado (2017) Psychical Research and the Fantastic Science of Spirits. In: Strange Science: Investigating the Limits of Knowledge in the Victorian Age (pp. 236-253).
Chapter Meegan Kennedy (2017) Discriminating the “Minuter Beauties of Nature”: Botany as Natural Theology in a Victorian Medical School. In: Strange Science: Investigating the Limits of Knowledge in the Victorian Age (pp. 40-61).
Chapter Narin Hassan (2017) “A Perfect World of Wonders”: Marianne North and the Pleasures and Pursuits of Botany. In: Strange Science: Investigating the Limits of Knowledge in the Victorian Age (pp. 62-80).
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