Category: Reviews
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Habinek, Lianne, The Subtle Knot: Early Modern English Literature and the Birth of Neuroscience
Lianne Habinek, The Subtle Knot: Early Modern English Literature and the Birth of Neuroscience (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Press, 2018), 283 pp. $55 CAD Hb. ISBN: 9780773553187 Could it be like a book, a box, a womb, an engine, a maze, or a palace? Early modern writers experimented with multiple metaphors for the brain in the sixteenth…
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Pérez Edelman, Diana, Embryology and the Rise of The Gothic Novel
Diana Pérez Edelman, Embryology and the Rise of The Gothic Novel (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) pp.179, £109.99 Hb. £99.99 Pb. £79.50 ebook. ISBN: 978-3-030-73647-7 Diana Pérez Edelman’s study correlates the proto-scientific field of embryology with the genesis of the Gothic novel. Through a biological context, Edelman uncovers the scientific relationship between Gothic narratives and eighteenth-century…
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Reynolds, Andrew S., Understanding Metaphors in the Life Sciences
Andrew S. Reynolds, Understanding Metaphors in the Life Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022), 223 pp. $14.95 Pb. ISBN 9781108938778 I think most of us know that popular science arrives to us refracted through many media. As we follow the ray to the source, we may find that it arrives to us a little slant,…
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Nüsslein-Volhard, Christiane, Animal Beauty: On the Evolution of Biological Aesthetics
Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, Animal Beauty: On the Evolution of Biological Aesthetics, illustrated by Suse Grützmacher; translated by Jonathan Howard (The MIT Press, 2019), 116 pp. $14.95 Hb. ISBN: 9780262039949. ‘Nature offers herself to us in many guises; what she hides, she at least hints at; she provides rich material for both the scientist and the philosopher,…
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Auyoung, Elaine, When Fiction Feels Real: Representation and the Reading Mind
Elaine Auyoung, When Fiction Feels Real: Representation and the Reading Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), 164 pp. £68.00 Hb. £14.99 Pb. ISBN: 9780190845476 It is a well-known fact that realist novels are characterized by their verisimilitude. In When Fiction Feels Real, Elaine Auyoung sets out to explore some of the ways these texts achieve this and how they put readers ‘into relation with fictional…
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Matthews, Paul, Transparent Minds in Science Fiction: An Introduction to Alien, AI and Post-Human Consciousness
Paul Matthews, Transparent Minds in Science Fiction: An Introduction to Alien, AI and Post-Human Consciousness (Open Book Publishers, 2023), 144 pp. £28.95 Hb. £16.95 Pb. ISBN: 978-1-80511-046-0 (Hb) This short book will be useful to those wanting to know more about non-human consciousnesses in Science Fiction novels. Written by a Computer Science lecturer, there are…
