Work in Progress Seminar: John MacNeill Miller

John MacNeill Miller is the author of The Ecological Plot: How Stories Gave Rise to a Science.

Title: The Poetics of Science

Abstract:
When it comes to categorizing knowledge, academic institutions are divided—and increasingly unclear about what their divisional categories even are or should be. Terms with long institutional histories (the arts and sciences; the humanities, the natural sciences and the social sciences) jostle uneasily with newer constructions (such as STEM and STEAM) amidst insistent calls for greater interdisciplinarity. This seminar will focus on one longstanding intellectual division—the infamous “two cultures” of literature and science—and outline a potential schema for uniting them by considering their shared foundations. Most attempts to bridge the gap between literature and science are relatively superficial and one-directional: they explore how scientific ideas might influence or be communicated through literary techniques. This seminar, by contrast, will investigate how scientific modes of thought could be understood as inherently literary, exploring how plotting, metaphor, and other literary techniques prove necessary to—and enlightening about—the practice of science.

These seminars are to discuss projects in early stages: the discussion will be multidisciplinary, collaborative and informal. Everyone welcome!