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Cover

Genetics and the Literary Imagination

Clare Hanson

13 May 2020

ISBN: 9780198813347

212 pages
Paperback
203x135mm

In Stock

Oxford Textual Perspectives

Price: £20.99

Studying works by Doris Lessing, Ian McEwan, A.S. Byatt, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Jackie Kay, this book explores the impact on literature of the gene-centric model of human nature that entered mainstream culture in the wake of the discovery of the structure of DNA.

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Description

Studying works by Doris Lessing, Ian McEwan, A.S. Byatt, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Jackie Kay, this book explores the impact on literature of the gene-centric model of human nature that entered mainstream culture in the wake of the discovery of the structure of DNA.

  • Explores the profound impact of genetics on literary fiction over the past 40 years
  • Strongly interdisciplinary, combining expertise both in the history of biology and in contemporary fiction
  • Uses material from the archives of Kazuo Ishiguro and Ian McEwan to offer novel interpretations of key texts
  • Draws on Catherine Malabou's innovative philosophical analysis of epigenetics and cloning

About the Author(s)

Clare Hanson, Emeritus Professor of English, University of Southampton

Clare Hanson is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Southampton. She is author and editor of 11 books including A Cultural History of Pregnancy: Pregnancy, Medicine and Culture 1750-2000 (Palgrave, 2004), Eugenics, Literature and Culture in Post-war Britain (Routledge, 2012), Katherine Mansfield and Psychology (with Gerri Kimber and Todd Martin, Edinburgh UP, 2016), and The History of British Women's Writing Vol 9, 1945-1975 (with Susan Watkins, Palgrave, 2017).

Table of Contents

    Introduction: The Secret of Life
    1:Doris Lessing's Evolutionary Epic
    2:A.S. Byatt's Biological Reason
    3:Ian McEwan: the Literary Animal
    4:Clone Lives: Eva Hoffman and Kazuo Ishiguro
    5:Postgenomic Histories: Margaret Drabble and Jackie Kay

Reviews

"Her analysis is insightful and her prose... is extremely readable. Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty." - E. R. Baer, Gustavus Adolphus College, CHOICE

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