[Between Fantasy Literature and a Popular Science Book: Hanns Heinz Ewersʼ Ameisen and his Myrmecomorphism] 幻想文学と科学入門書の狭間 ―ハンス・ハインツ・エーヴェルス『蟻』における擬蟻法 (2020)
Naoyuki 尚之 Soma 相馬 (Author)
科学史研究 Kagakusi Kenkyu (History of Science)
Volume: 59
Issue: 296
Pages: 311-326
This paper discusses the significance of the novels included in the German author Hanns Heinz Ewersʼ (1871–1943) popular science book Ameisen (The Ants, 1925). After World War I, the destruction of the existing social norms led scientists and novelists to engage in the research of social insects. Ewers, a best-selling author during the period from the end of the nineteenth century to the interwar period, wrote a book about ants to criticize modern science, which had become so professionalized and jargon-laden that laypeople did not understand it. The peculiarity of Ewersʼ work lies in three “myrmecomorphic” novels that transplanted the behaviors of ants into human society. This paper focuses on two of those three novels, Jungfernzeugung? (Parthenogenesis) and Armer Freddy (Poor Freddy), and clarifies how these fantasy novels function as satire on scientists. In Jungfernzeugung?, for example, Ewers mixed a traditional motif and the newest scientific accomplishment: succubus and parthenogenesis in sea urchins. Through this mixture of literary and scientific imaginations, he attached a (pseudo-)scientific explanation to the old myth and strong suspicion to the exactness of science. Ewersʼ myrmecomorphism not only satisfied the curiosity of the masses but also exposed how the latest study of biology was full of analogical thoughts and social ideologies. Through its excessive obscenity and curious resonances, which aligned with the trend in biologism -- especially with the scientific worldview expressed by monists like Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) -- Ewersʼ myrmecomorphism revealed the hidden cultural aspects, such as misogyny and homophobia, in exact natural science.
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Historia Scientiarum: International Journal of the History of Science Society of Japan
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