A01=Pamela Gossin
Albert Van Helden
Astronomical Concepts
Author_Pamela Gossin
Category=DSBF
Category=DSK
Contemporary Astronomy
Cosmic Voyage
Cosmological Narratives
crowd
Deep Space
double
Double Stars
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
feminist literary criticism
Hardy's Narrative
Hardy’s Narrative
history of astronomy in literature
hypothesis
interdisciplinary humanities
Island Universes
Jacob Korg
literary
literary cosmology
Literary Notebooks
Lunar Eclipse
mad
Madding Crowd
Main Characters
myth and scientific thought
native
nebular
Nebular Hypothesis
nineteenth-century British novels analysis
notebooks
Oklahoma Libraries
Personal Construct
Popular Astronomy
return
stars
Stellar Parallax
Sun Shine
Tess Cosslett
Thomas Hardy
University Of Wisconsin
Variable Stars
Victorian science studies
Young Man
Product details
- ISBN 9780754603368
- Weight: 589g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 26 Sep 2007
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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In this, the first book-length study of astronomy in Hardy's writing, historian of science and literary scholar Pamela Gossin brings the analytical tools of both disciplines to bear as she offers unexpected and sophisticated readings of seven novels that enrich Darwinian and feminist perspectives on his work, extend formalist evaluations of his achievement as a writer, and provide fresh interpretations of enigmatic passages and scenes. In an elegantly crafted introduction, Gossin draws together the shared critical values and methods of literary studies and the history of science to articulate a hybrid model of scholarly interpretation and analysis that promotes cross-disciplinary compassion and understanding within the current contention of the science/culture wars. She then situates Hardy's own deeply interdisciplinary knowledge of astronomy and cosmology within both literary and scientific traditions, from the ancient world through the Victorian era. Gossin offers insightful new assessments of A Pair of Blue Eyes, Far from the Madding Crowd, The Return of the Native, Two on a Tower, The Woodlanders, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and Jude the Obscure, arguing that Hardy's personal synthesis of ancient and modern astronomy with mythopoetic and scientific cosmologies enabled him to write as a literary cosmologist for the post-Darwinian world. The profound new myths that comprise Hardy's novel universe can be read as a sustained set of literary thought-experiments by which he critiques the possibilities, limitations, and dangers of living out the storylines that such imaginative cosmologies project for his time - and ours.
Pamela Gossin, who holds a double PhD in History of Science and English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is Associate Professor of History of Science and Literary Studies and Director of Medical and Scientific Humanities (MaSH) at the University of Texas-Dallas. Her publications include An Encyclopedia of Literature and Science (2002) and numerous articles and chapters on the interrelations of literature, culture, and science.
