Read more
Informationen zum Autor Nina Engelhardt is a lecturer in English Literature at the University of Stuttgart. She received her PhD from the University of Edinburgh and has since held research and teaching positions at the University of Edinburgh, the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Edinburgh, and the University of Cologne. Klappentext 'Persuasively and engagingly, Nina Engelhardt demonstrates that modernism's relation to contemporary mathematics was often more analogous than adversarial. This fascinating study extends understanding of modernism within its historical and cultural context, opening up a seldom-explored area through incisive critical discussion of mathematics and narrative innovation.'Randall Stevenson, University of EdinburghAn analysis of novelistic explorations of modernism in mathematics and its cultural interrelationsModernism in mathematics - this unusual notion turns out to provide a new perspective on central questions in and beyond literary modernism. Contrasting 'mathematical fictions' from and about the heyday of mathematical modernism, this book relates literary engagements with mathematical modernism to the wider context of modernist critiques of Enlightenment values and postmodern reassessments of modernist patterns. The analysis of canonical works by Thomas Pynchon, Hermann Broch and Robert Musil demonstrates how mathematics is accorded a central role as a particularly telling indicator of modernist transformations, and how imaginative illustrations contribute to establishing mathematics as part of modernist culture. In its interdisciplinary exploration of modernist interrelations between the surprisingly closely related fields of mathematics and literature, the book draws on prose works by mathematicians, research in the history and philosophy of mathematics and literary scholarship.Nina Engelhardt is Research Fellow for the Transformation of Knowledge research group at the University of Cologne.Cover image: Numbers Composition © agsandrew/Adobe StockCover design:[EUP logo]edinburghuniversitypress.comISBN 978-1-4744-1623-8BarcodeAn analysis of novelistic explorations of modernism in mathematics and its cultural interrelations Inhaltsverzeichnis Acknowledgements; Series Editors' Preface; Abbreviations; Introduction: All that Counts - Modernism, Fiction, Mathematics; 1. Mathematics and Politics: Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day; 2. Mathematics, Language, Structure: Hermann Broch, The Sleepwalkers; 3. Mathematics, Epistemology, Ethics: Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities; 4. Mathematics and Fiction: Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow; Conclusion: Modernism, Fiction, and Mathematics; Glossary; Bibliography; Index....
