Miller's Milieu, or the Cultural Moments of Late Humanism: Science and Religion in the Golden Age of Science Fiction (2008)
Thiess, Derek J. (Author)
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Koelb, Clayton
Edition Details: Advisor: Koelb, Clayton
Physical Details: 211 pp.
Language: English
This work demonstrates that the shift in scholarship regarding science and religion away from a "warfare" model in the first half of the 20 th century and the effect of this shift on American literature of the 1950's and 1960's, altered greatly the disposition of the humanities toward science. When scholars stopped regarding the interaction of science and religion as one of conflict, it became unfashionable to so much as mention conflict or warfare when discussing either camp. The method of investigation most scholars prefer, even more so in recent years, is to view science and religion through a model known as the "complexity thesis," which exists seemingly only to negate conflict. This essay argues that the complexity thesis is not truly complex, due to its obdurate refusal to acknowledge often physical conflicts between proponents of science and religion. This refusal carries over into science fiction of the mid-20 th century, in texts like Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz, where it becomes a whitewash of significant historical moments of conflict such as the trial of Galileo. The complexity approach thus became popular by colonizing genre fiction in order to evangelize the masses. This moment of popularization alters not only the humanistic approach to science, but also the nature of the humanities itself, first by disallowing conflict then by forgetting its victims.
...MoreDescription On the understanding of science and religion and its effect on science fiction in the mid-20th century. Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 69/04 (2008). Pub. no. AAT 3304399.
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