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Science: Dramatic

Science Plays in America and Great Britain, 1990–2007

Zehelein, Eva-Sabine

American Studies – A Monograph Series, Bd. 180

2012

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Abstract

“Science Plays” form a flourishing dramatic sub-genre. The present study provides an informative overview shedding light on the diversity of ways in which the natural sciences and/or scientists are put on stage. Detailed text-based analyses of eighteen plays, many of them previously unexamined elsewhere, exemplify the genre’s remarkable variety. “Classics” such as ‘Copenhagen’ and ‘Arcadia’ are discussed, as well as e.g. ‘Proof’, ‘QED’, ‘Taboos’, ‘Remembering Miss Meitner’, ‘An Experiment With an Air Pump’, ‘Blinded by the Sun’ and ‘Einstein’s Gift’. All plays look critically at scientific progress or promise, pointing at socio-political and ethical challenges for today as well as the future. The plays’ analyses are embedded into discussions of two vital discourses, the Two Cultures and the Science Wars, as well as the drama vs. performance studies paradigm. Together with background material on various themes, events and personae, ‘Science: Dramatic’ broadens into a comprehensive work on the science-drama-society interface.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Zwischenüberschrift Seite Aktion Preis
Contents VII
Acknowledgments XI
Introduction 1
1. Science or Theater: From "Two Cultures" to the "Science Wars" 19
From Burlington House to Chelsea: Snow and the two Cultures 21
"Literature" vs. "Science" 27
Numerous Cultures 33
"One-Way Streets" and "Idea Shuttles" 38
The "Science Wars" 48
2. In Defense of the Dramatic Text 57
Conceptual Crisis in Theater Studies 58
A Semantic Impossibility 61
John L. Austin and the Speech-Act 63
Deconstructivist Derrida 65
Austin as Performer 66
Judith Butler 68
The Ephemeral Character of Performance 70
Theater Semiotics: Performance Text vs. Dramatic Text 72
The Dramatic Text vs. Performance, and the Post-Dramatic Theater 73
Truces and the Decisive Role of the Dramatic Text 74
3. Science and Theater: Liaison Dangereuse or Amour Magique? 83
Science Plays: A Rainbow-Colored Umbrella Term 86
Science Plays: A new Taxonomy 97
Drama as Text 97
The Science play and its Gamut 99
4. "Science-In-Theater" 103
Docere et Delectare 107
Art, Icsi and the Consequences 108
Ego Theorists meet Bundle Theorists 129
The Tribal Culture of the Scientists, then and now 134
"Ambition Without Love is Cold" 135
Priortity and Kudos 137
Moral Ethics vs. Scientific Ethos 147
"The Tragedy of the German Jew" 162
Calculating Probabilities 173
Proof vs. Trust, Genius vs. Madness 174
Man and Mortality 185
Applied Cause and Effect Logic 192
"Hungry Little Questions. How? [...] No cause" 193
"Everything is Reducible in the Ende" 200
5. "History of Science in Theater" 213
In fond Memory: Rescued "From the Dustbins of History" 222
Physics, Chemistry and Memory 223
James Watson's Creation of "Rosy" 234
Replaying the Moment 251
Epistemology of Intention 252
6. Borderliners 273
"Science to play with" 275
"Sex and Literature. Literature and Sex" 275
"Science as Fig Leaf" 285
A Study of Obsession 286
For the Rights of the Disabled 292
Genocide on the Balkan 302
Feynman in the Desert 309
Finis 319
Bibliography 327