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9 Robert Eaglestone Critical knowledge, scientific knowledge and the truth of literature Introduction: criticism has the character of knowledge, but it is not a kind of scientific knowledge At the now-famous conference at Johns Hopkins University in 1966 that introduced both structuralism and what one could call, roughly, ‘post-structuralism’ to the USA, the critic Georges Poulet meditated about the nature of reading: a book is not shut in by its contours, is not walled up as in a fortress. It asks nothing better than to exist outside itself, or to let you
This essay positions the drug-using doctor at the intersection between traditional Gothic horror and a new fin-de-siècle medical realism, embedding the cultural anxieties at the fin de siècle in relation to the ethical and theological boundaries of scientific knowledge. The objective is to provide a framework for reading and interpreting the medico-gothic narrative of addiction. The essay examines the writings of three pioneering physician-scientists: one historical – Sigmund Freud – and two fictional – Dr Jekyll, in Robert Louis Stevenson‘s Strange Case of DrJekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), and Dr Seward in Bram Stoker‘s Dracula (1897).
David Lloyd Roberts MRCS LSA MD FRCP FRS.Edin (1834–1920) was a successful Manchester doctor who made significant contributions to the advancement of gynaecology and obstetrics. His career was closely linked to the Manchester St Mary’s Hospital for Women and Children, 1858–1920. He lectured on midwifery at Owens College and the University of Manchester and was gynaecological surgeon to Manchester Royal Infirmary. He had many interests outside medicine, including a large collection of rare books, paintings and antiques. He produced an edition of Thomas Browne’s Religio Medici (1898) and a paper, The Scientific Knowledge of Dante (1914). He donated his books to the John Rylands Library and the London Royal College of Physician, his paintings to the Manchester Art Gallery, and he left a large endowment to Bangor College, Wales. This article reviews his medical work alongside his legacy to literature, the arts and education.
‘irreducible uncertainties’ of the situations encountered by teams on the ground. As Champy argues ( Champy, 2018: 17 ), ‘when action is required in highly singular and complex situations, common solutions that can be automatically inferred from routines, rules or scientific knowledge, might lead to mistakes and damages. Indeed, the singularity of the situation may imply that… the situation does not allow for a high degree of certainty’. In such situations, transmission of knowledge between
and Change , 1 – 22 . Fassin , D. ( 2007 ), ‘Humanitarianism as a Politics of Life’ , Public Culture , 19 : 3 , 499 – 520 . Fox , R. C. ( 2014 ), Doctors Without Borders: Humanitarian Quests, Impossible Dreams of Médecins Sans Frontières ( Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press ). Geissler , P. ( 2013 ), ‘Public Secrets in Public Health: Knowing Not to Know While Making Scientific Knowledge’ , American Ethnologist , 40 : 1 , 13 – 34 . Givoni , M. ( 2016 ), ‘Reluctant Cosmopolitanism: Perceptions Management and the Performance of
) ’, 7 May , www.who.int/immunization/interim_ebola_recommendations_may_2019_FR.pdf (accessed 22 November 2021 ). Tilley , H. ( 2011 ), Africa as a Living Laboratory: Empire, Development, and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge, 1870–1950 ( Chicago
?from=mdr . Tilley , H. ( 2011 ), Africa as a Living Laboratory: Empire, Development, and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge, 1870–1950 ( Chicago : Chicago University Press ). UNHCR ( 2022 ), ‘ Ukraine Situation: Regional Refugee Response Plan. Summary and Inter-Agency Funding Requirements March–August 2022 ’, 1 March, https
As the British and French empires expanded, constructing new imperial dimensions through growing commerce and the relationships of industrialisation, the bases of Spanish power were being undermined. Nationalism, revolt, the pursuit of forms of decolonisation (often aided by Spain's rivals) became the prime characteristic of Central and South American politics. This book examines the study of natural history in the Spanish empire in the years 1750-1850, explaining how the Spanish authorities collected specimens for the
difficulty raised by contextualisation is that it undermines specificity. In the hands of the historian or the sociologist, scientific knowledge loses the talismanic value attached to it by the philosopher or the scientist. It becomes a mere subset of the general quantum of knowledge available to a society at any given time. And once the focus of scholarly interest shifts from ideas to practices and uses (the generation and consumption of information about natural phenomena), the special status of scientific knowledge acquisition is further eroded. Science history as
Joel Mokyr’s contentions fare when confronted with the findings of a case study? It is clear that the sharpness with which he formulates the steps leading to the production of ‘useful knowledge’ – the critical ingredient which Industrial Enlightenment bequeathed to the Industrial Revolution – cannot be neatly evidenced. As stated in Chapter 1, the bracketing of oral and ‘hands-on’ wisdom alongside ‘pure’ scientific knowledge seems arbitrary; or at least it makes sense only if we assume that eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century folk knowledge was rapidly codified. In