Dear Blog,

So today I have mainly been thinking about analogy. I’m giving a paper in a roundtable discussion at the British Society for Literature and Science conference in Liverpool (http://www.bsls.ac.uk/2015/03/bsls-2015-conference-programme/) later this week on this subject. My methodological approach to the literature-science subdiscipline has been largely based on analogy. Analogy has also be the subject of work that I’ve done in this area.

The 1814-19 debate on the nature of life in the Royal College of Surgeons (the focus of my PhD and then my first book) was fought partly on methodological grounds: John Abernethy argued that analogy had to be used because the senses would never be able to perceive the immaterial, superadded, something that was the vital principle. His colleague (and erstwhile student), William Lawrence, argued that empiricism was the only way for physiology to proceed: for his detractors though, this was tantamount to an admission of materialism. Abernethy argued that life worked in the same way that electricity worked; Lawrence said this was a nonsense. Using the words of Hamlet, Lawrence declaimed ‘’Tis like a camel, or like a whale, or like what you please’ (Introduction, pp. 169–70). He was unequivocal: ‘The truth is, there is no resemblance, no analogy between electricity and life: the two orders of phenomena are completely distinct; they are incommensurable. Electricity illustrates life no more than life illustrates electricity’ (Introduction, pp. 170–1). Abernethy was quite explicit in other analogies that he made: a separate, independent vital principle was necessary to control and regulate the body. Lawrence correctly identified the analogy Abernethy was making with such repressive state apparatuses as Bow Street and the Old Bailey, institutions that kept the poplace in check.

Analogy is such an interesting idea; it seems to mean finding a parallel or finding corresponding characteristics in two things. For the chemist Humphry Davy, the existence of analogous elements made him think that there was some essential, primary element(s) contained within all things which enabled the transformations witnessed in matter. By this point in time, chemists believed there was a finite amount of matter in the world but that it was continually changing and transforming into new forms. In my paper for the conference, I argue that Davy’s theory is analogous to the way that I use analogy: the reason that I find parallels between literature and science is because both are the cultural productions of politics and history. The both have within them the primary elements of a particular historical moment. In Davy’s chemistry, analogous elements have the potential to transform to become something new, while still retaining their identities. This in itself is a nice metaphor for our sub-discipline of literature and science.

It’s nice to be thinking big thoughts again, if only for a day, and I’m excited about the conference since that will hopefully get me thinking again. In other news, we’re deciding tomorrow on the participants for the AHRC NW Partnership doctoral training day to be held at Lancaster on Weds 20th May, ‘The Visual and the Verbal’, so I should be able to write to people to let them know that they are in. Now to get back to the marking: how can a four-week turnaround period be so difficult to manage??

Best,

Sharon