Argument

The purpose of this volume is to investigate a number of selected examples of contact zones between the sciences and literature. We will be dealing with prominent cases of how science and literature encounter and interact with each other and profit by this recourse to their corresponding other, yielding aspects of self-reflection and self-representation. The volume will not attempt to address the question whether the so-called “two cultures” can be brought closer together or superseded by a third (Lepenies 1988, passim). We will be dealing neither with science and literature in an autobiographical or “life-world” sense, nor with popular scientific texts with quasi-literary claims, such as Stephen Hawking's theory of time, nor, in the parallel universe of popular fiction, with science fiction.