Experimental Life
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A01=Robert Mitchell
Author_Robert Mitchell
Category=DSA
Category=PDX
cryptogamia
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_science
experiment
Romanticism
science
science studies
suspended animation
theory of art
vitalism
Product details
- ISBN 9781421410883
- Weight: 544g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 10 Feb 2014
- Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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If the objective of the Romantic movement was nothing less than to redefine the meaning of life itself, what role did experiments play in this movement? While earlier scholarship has established both the importance of science generally and vitalism specifically, with regard to Romanticism no study has investigated what it meant for artists to experiment and how those experiments related to their interest in the concept of life. Experimental Life draws on approaches and ideas from contemporary science studies, proposing the concept of experimental vitalism to show both how Romantic authors appropriated the concept of experimentation from the sciences and the impact of their appropriation on post-Romantic concepts of literature and art. Robert Mitchell navigates complex conceptual arenas such as network theory, gift exchange, paranoia, and biomedia and introduces new concepts, such as cryptogamia, chylopoietic discourse, trance-plantation, and the poetics of suspension. As a result, Experimental Life is a wide-ranging summation and extension of the current state of literary studies, the history of science, cultural critique, and theory.
Robert Mitchell is a professor of English and director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Science and Cultural Theory at Duke University. He is author of Sympathy and the State in the Romantic Era: Systems, State Finance, and the Shadows of Futurity.
