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Electromagnetism and the Metonymic Imagination / Kieran M. Murphy.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: AnthropoScene: The SLSA Book Series ; 4Publisher: University Park, PA : Penn State University Press, [2021]Copyright date: ©2020Description: 1 online resource (192 p.) : 11 illustrationsContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780271087368
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 809/.9336 23
LOC classification:
  • PN56.E49 M87 2020
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. (Electro-)Magnetic Chains -- 2. Induction Apparatuses -- 3. Automata -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index
Summary: How does the imagination work? How can it lead to both reverie and scientific insight? In this book, Kieran M. Murphy sheds new light on these perennial questions by showing how they have been closely tied to the history of electromagnetism.The discovery in 1820 of a mysterious relationship between electricity and magnetism led not only to technological inventions-such as the dynamo and telegraph, which ushered in the "electric age"-but also to a profound reconceptualization of nature and the role the imagination plays in it. From the literary experiments of Edgar Allan Poe, Honoré de Balzac, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, and André Breton to the creative leaps of Michael Faraday and Albert Einstein, Murphy illuminates how electromagnetism legitimized imaginative modes of reasoning based on a more acute sense of interconnection and a renewed interest in how metonymic relations could reveal the order of things.Murphy organizes his study around real and imagined electromagnetic devices, ranging from Faraday's world-changing induction experiment to new types of chains and automata, in order to demonstrate how they provided a material foundation for rethinking the nature of difference and relation in physical and metaphysical explorations of the world, human relationships, language, and binaries such as life and death. This overlooked exchange between science and literature brings a fresh perspective to the critical debates that shaped the nineteenth century.Extensively researched and convincingly argued, this pathbreaking book addresses a significant lacuna in modern literary criticism and deepens our understanding of both the history of literature and the history of scientific thinking.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780271087368

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. (Electro-)Magnetic Chains -- 2. Induction Apparatuses -- 3. Automata -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

How does the imagination work? How can it lead to both reverie and scientific insight? In this book, Kieran M. Murphy sheds new light on these perennial questions by showing how they have been closely tied to the history of electromagnetism.The discovery in 1820 of a mysterious relationship between electricity and magnetism led not only to technological inventions-such as the dynamo and telegraph, which ushered in the "electric age"-but also to a profound reconceptualization of nature and the role the imagination plays in it. From the literary experiments of Edgar Allan Poe, Honoré de Balzac, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, and André Breton to the creative leaps of Michael Faraday and Albert Einstein, Murphy illuminates how electromagnetism legitimized imaginative modes of reasoning based on a more acute sense of interconnection and a renewed interest in how metonymic relations could reveal the order of things.Murphy organizes his study around real and imagined electromagnetic devices, ranging from Faraday's world-changing induction experiment to new types of chains and automata, in order to demonstrate how they provided a material foundation for rethinking the nature of difference and relation in physical and metaphysical explorations of the world, human relationships, language, and binaries such as life and death. This overlooked exchange between science and literature brings a fresh perspective to the critical debates that shaped the nineteenth century.Extensively researched and convincingly argued, this pathbreaking book addresses a significant lacuna in modern literary criticism and deepens our understanding of both the history of literature and the history of scientific thinking.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 26. Mai 2021)