Transactions and Encounters

• 08 augustus 2002
• 9780719059100

Samenvatting:

Victorians were surprised and enchanted as much as threatened by emerging technologies and sciences. This study looks at their reactions, ranging the craze for microscopes, the uncanny possibilities of the telephone, to the weird imagery around androgynous barnacles and mindreading acts.



This collection brings together essays by leading scholars exploring the complex interface of culture and science in the Victorian era. Long before the so-called "two-cultures" conflict, Victorians encountered science in unpredictable ways, being surprised and enchanted as much as threatened by emerging technologies or the claims of newly professional scientists. "Transactions and Encounters" examines a diverse range of such moments: the popular craze for microscopes; the uncanny possibility of the telephone; the jostling for authority between literature and science, with scenes by and including Dickens and Lewes, Huxley and Gosse; the weird imaginary around androgynous barnacles; and the competing versions of a mind-reading act. These essays combine to produce an attempt to re-cast understanding of 19th-century encounters between the cultural and scientific spheres. The contributors include David Amigoni, Isobel Armstrong, Carolyn Burdett, Steven Connor, Lindsay Smith, Rebecca Stott, Lynette Turner and Paul S. White.