Seminar - Late Darwin: extinction, aesthetics, and the human

Dame Gillian Beer, Clare Hall

*History and Economics Seminar*
** Wednesday 24 February at 5pm **


The seminar meets in the Bridgetower Room, Trinity Hall, Trinity Lane

Book Launch - It's Just the Beating of My Heart

Richard Aronowitz's eagerly awaited second novel is published by Flambard in March. An art dealer with a fading reputation, John Stack finds solace in alcohol-fuelled walks through a Gloucestershire valley. His wife has left him, taking their daughter Bryony with her, and John finds himself increasingly drawn towards a beautiful and enigmatic neighbour. Told in sparkling poetic language, It’s Just the Beating of My Heart is a story of loss, heartbreak and hope by the author of the acclaimed Five Amber Beads.

A launch event for It’s Just the Beating of My Heart will take place at the Fulham Road branch of Daunt Books (158-164 Fulham Road, London SW10 9PR) on Thursday, 4th March 2010 from 6.30 to 8.30pm. There will be drinks and snacks, as well as a reading from the novel.

CFP - Reweaving the Rainbow: Literature and Philosophy 1850-1910

University of Exeter, 10th - 11th September 2010
Confirmed keynote speaker: Prof. Michael Wood (Princeton)

Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line
Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine --
Unweave a rainbow...
(Keats, Lamia, 229-237)

John Keats' famous indictment illustrates the historically ambivalent encounter between literature and 'cold' philosophy. In the decades that followed, this relationship was to enter a new phase, as each field sought to redefine itself to befit the emerging conditions of modernity. Yet even as the endeavour to explore philosophical issues and the influence of philosophical discourses burgeoned in novels, poetry and essays, the separate institutionalisation of philosophy and English literature in universities from the early 1890s pulled these most intimately related 'disciplines' apart.

This interdisciplinary two-day conference will explore the vicissitudes of influence, appropriation, interaction and disciplinarity in 'English literature' and 'philosophy'. It will address the ways in which literature is philosophical and philosophy is literary, and how their interactions evolved in the course of this period. We are seeking to raise a range of issues including, but not limited to:

* How novels and poetry exploit the philosophical potentialities of literary form, including the treatment and expansion of philosophical issues such as ethics and epistemology in literary works (eg. Henry James' empiricism, Wilde's aphorisms)

* The influence of philosophers on literary writers (eg. Feuerbach and Eliot, Ancient Greek philosophy and Arnold, Nietzsche and Vernon Lee)

* Intellectual and literary culture in Britain (eg. the Classics in Oxford, the British Hegelians, the rise of Positivism, the persistence of Romantic philosophies)

* The philosophy of literature and the arts (eg. Ruskin, George Moore, Arthur Symons)

* The way that science influenced philosophical discourses in essays, novels and poetry (eg. evolution and ethics, Hardy and social Darwinism)

The deadline for submission of abstracts is 2nd April 2010. Please send an abstract of around 300 words and a brief biography to Dr. Kate Hext and EII Research Fellow Alice Barnaby at k.hext@ex.ac.uk no later than this date. Questions and comments are also welcome!

CFP - 'Half Dust, Half Deity; or, Science, Nature, & the Supernatural in the Long Eighteenth Century

24th – 25th April, 2010, English Faculty, Cambridge
Call for papers here. Further information at the website here.
Deadline 19th March 2010.

1st March

For the last meeting of this term we'll conclude our exploration of alchemy and chemistry with Tony Harrison's 1992 play Square Rounds. This is available in the West Room and Reading Room of the University Library, or in the English Faculty library, or from second-hand book websites. We meet, as usual, in room G03 of the Mary Allan Building at Homerton College, Cambridge, from 7.30-9pm. All welcome!

E.O. Wilson - 'Trailhead'

A short story about the life and death of a Queen ant and her colony, online at The New Yorker.

Next term

An advance announcement that next term we shall be reading fairy-tales of science: a selection of texts from the long nineteenth century that combined new science and technologies with the myths and stories of old.

A Herschel Trio

15th February

For our third meeting of term we continue our readings on alchemy and chemistry with selections from Primo Levi and Oliver Sacks (details below). A photocopy of the readings is available in the Whipple Library boxfile. We meet as usual from 7.30-9pm in room G03 of the Mary Allan Building, Homerton College. All welcome!

Primo Levi, L'altrui mestiere (1985).  Translated by Raymond Rosenthal as Other People's Trades.  Michael Joseph Ltd, London, 1989. This is a collection of short essays, which originally appeared in the Turin newspaper La Stampa.  We will look at "The Mark of the Chemist" (pp. 86-90), "The Language of Chemists (I)" (pp. 100-105), "The Language of Chemists (II)" (pp. 106-110), "Ex-Chemist" (pp. 174-176)

Two chapters from Oliver Sacks' memoir, Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood (2001). Reprinted by Picador, London, 2002. Chapter 7, "Chemical Recreations" (pp. 67-76) Chapter 8, "Stinks and Bangs" (pp. 77-90)

Cabinet of Natural History talk

On Monday 1st February, Kelley Swain will present a talk on "Beale, Bennett, Scoresby (and Melville!): a 'natural' history of cetology".

As always, the Cabinet will meet at 1pm in HPS seminar room 1. All are welcome, and free to bring lunch.