Review of James J. Bono’s (ed) ‘Focus: History of Science and Literature and Science: Convergences and Divergences’

摘要

This timely focus section from Isis explores the shared interests between the fields of the history of science (the home discipline of Isis itself) and literature and science. James J. Bono's introduction to the issue provides an interesting historical context to discussions of literature and science in Isis, explaining that in some respects this is a (long-overdue) response to an Isis article written in 1978 by G.S. Rousseau, who glumly predicted the death of science and literature studies. As the rumours of that demise have been greatly exaggerated, Bono responds, it is time that historians of science sit up and take notice of the many grounds on which their work connects to that of literary scholars. In particular, Bono argues that the history of science and science itself can be seen to be 'making' knowledge in a way that is similar to literary forms of 'making', or poiesis, bringing it back to the Greek etymology of poet as 'maker'. For Bono, scientific making is "the making of the different forms of knowledge of things and events in nature", which puts it in a realm where there is little distinction between "discourse and (material) practice or, to put it differently, between text and action" (557-558). This is the framework, then, of the four essays that make up the special issue