Affiliation:
1. Research Lab “Transformations,” University of Cologne, Albertus-Magnus-Platz, 50923 Cologne, Germany
Abstract
Abstract
This paper introduces the concept of scientific metafiction, developing it in relation to historiographic metafiction, which questions the truth of historical knowledge and highlights similarities with fiction. Scientific metafiction accordingly is marked by a refusal of the view that only science has a truth claim and by comparing science and fiction as discourses. Thomas Pynchon’s novels are exemplary historiographic metafictions, and I argue that the growing importance of science and scientific metafiction is crucial to the development of the ontological dominant that, according to Brian McHale, characterises postmodernist fiction. Focusing on three novels from the 1970s to the twenty-first century, I demonstrate that the concept of scientific metafiction and its negotiation of concerns also discussed in science studies are central to Pynchon’s work and crucial to its move beyond the epistemological questioning of historiographic metafiction and towards raising ontological concerns.
Subject
Literature and Literary Theory,Linguistics and Language,Language and Linguistics
Reference21 articles.
1. Bachelard, Gaston (1972 [1953]). Le matérialisme rationnel. Paris: Les Presses universitaires de France.
2. Bloor, David (1981). “Hamilton and Peacock on the Essence of Algebra.” Herbert Mehrtens, Henk Bos and Ivo Schneider, eds. Social History of Nineteenth Century Mathematics. Boston, MA: Birkhäuser, 202–232.
3. Dalsgaard, Inger (2012). “Science and Technology.” Inger Dalsgaard, Luc Herman and Brian McHale, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Pynchon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 156–167.
4. Duyfhuizen, Bernard (1981). “Starry-Eyed Semiotics: Learning to Read Slothrop’s Map and Gravity’s Rainbow.” Pynchon Notes 6, 5–33.
5. Engler, Bernd (1994). “The Dismemberment of Clio: Fictionality, Narrativity, and the Construction of Historical Reality in Historiographic Metafiction.” Bernd Engler and Kurt Müller, eds. Historiographic Metafiction in Modern American and Canadian Literature. Paderborn: Schöningh, 13–33.
Cited by
49 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献，注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献，订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献
1. Further Reading;Thomas Pynchon in Context;2019-06-30
2. Critical Literature Review;Thomas Pynchon in Context;2019-06-30
3. Book Reviews and Reception;Thomas Pynchon in Context;2019-06-30
4. Fandom;Thomas Pynchon in Context;2019-06-30
5. Material Readings;Thomas Pynchon in Context;2019-06-30