Literature, Science, and Public Policy: From Darwin to Genomics

Jay Clayton

doi:10.1017/9781009263504

Literature, Science, and Public Policy

From Darwin to Genomics

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- Open access

Jay Clayton, Vanderbilt University, Tennessee

Publisher:: Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:: August 2023
Print publication year:: 2023
Online ISBN:: 9781009263504
DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009263504
Creative Commons:: This content is Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence CC-BY-NC 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/creativelicenses

Subjects:: Literature, Literary Theory, English Literature 1900-1945

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Literature, Science, and Public Policy shows how literature can influence public policy concerning scientific controversies in genetics and other areas. Literature brings unique insights to issues involving cloning, GMOs, gene editing, and more by dramatizing their full human complexity. Literature's value for public policy is demonstrated by striking examples that range from the literary response to evolution in the Victorian era through the modern synthesis of evolution and genetics in the mid-twentieth century to present-day genomics. Outlining practical steps for humanists who want to help shape public policy, this book offers vivid readings of novels by H. G. Wells, H. Rider Haggard, Aldous Huxley, Robert Heinlein, Octavia Butler, Samuel R. Delany, David Mitchell, Margaret Atwood, Ian McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro, Gary Shteyngart, and others that illustrate the important insights that literary studies can bring to debates about science and society. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

‘Jay Clayton has provided a state-of-the-art toolkit for humanities scholars engaging with policy, but also for their Deans, PVCs, Vice-Chancellors, and funding bodies who support interdisciplinary research and outward-facing institutions. Clayton's expert knowledge of literary history and lifelong collaborations in science and technology will be of interest to anyone who wants informed opinion on literature and science, evolution, epigenetics, the modern synthesis, and genomics.'

Regenia Gagnier - University of Exeter

‘Both science itself and related policy rely implicitly on narratives embedded in time - narratives that both summarize the relevant actions of the past and forecast a version of the future. But neither policy advisers nor scientists tend to be particularly mindful of the essentials of storytelling …. This is what the American academic Jay Clayton seeks to change in his coherently argued book.’

Pippa Goldschmidt Source: The Times Literary Supplement

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