Considerations of literature and science are often historically determined, and this symposium will consider how knowledge-making and practice in the fields of literary and scientific history work, or don’t work, together. Its three sessions will explore the relations of literature and science at three different levels -- the institutional, the verbal, the formal – and will conclude by considering historicism in relation to the field.

(1) Scientific Institutions and Literary Culture.

This session asks how scientific institutions have engaged with literary knowledge in their activities and their publications and about the place of these institutions in their contemporary literary cultures. We have identified potential speakers on The Royal Society, The Royal Institution, and The British Association for the Advancement of Science; we would have an open call for papers with a particular focus on Lit. and Phil. Societies in North America and Europe.

(2) Literary Knowledge, Scientific Knowledge, and Literary Form.

This section focuses on the exchange between structural and formal models of knowledge in science and literature. It will interrogate the relationship between literary poetics, including codicological, rhetorical, figurative, and linguistic forms, and the poetics of scientific spaces, including collections and museums. How has literary knowledge shaped other knowledge forms, especially the scientific? How has science shaped literary form and literary language?

(3) Historicism in Literature and Science.

This session turns to the relation of history of science to historicist literature-and-science studies. What is the authority of historicism in literature and science? What benefits does the rigour of the history of science bring to the field, and what price must be paid? What are the costs and benefits of chronological precision?