This symposium will explore the role of literary and artistic work in the production and communication of geological knowledge. ‘Literature’ and ‘art’ are broadly defined: papers will explore both ‘high’ genres (such as fine art, novels and poetry) and genres which are conventionally associated with science communication in which artistic form was no less important (such as maps and technical drawings). Papers will discuss figures and representational traditions from around the world from the late eighteenth century (when geology emerged as a science) to the twentieth century. Speakers will discuss the ways in which knowledge was shaped by the constraints and possibilities of artistic and literary forms or aesthetic demands, the role of art and literature in shaping wider public perceptions of geology, and the ways in which the work of geological knowledge-production has been represented in art and literature. To provide a genuinely interdisciplinary perspective on this nexus of practices, speakers will include historians of science, art historians and literary scholars.

This symposium will link with a proposed field trip to Coniston in the Lake District to visit the home of John Ruskin, whose career in the mid-Victorian period united the fields of literature, art and geology.