At The Intersection of Science and Literature
Transcriber: Khanh Nguyen
Reviewer: David DeRuwe
When I was in my third year
of mechanical engineering,
I was looking for a work position
for my co-op term,
and I came across a job posting
from The Wizarding World of Harry Potter,
and it was something along the lines
of they were looking for someone
to help with their
animatronic werewolves.
I did not get the job;
I did not end up working werewolves,
but it really drew my attention
to the incredibly unusual projects
that can exist at this bridging point
between engineering and the arts.
And I realized that the work
I was most excited about
were these strange,
discipline-hopping projects
that combine engineering and science
with literature and music and film.
And what I want to talk about today
are really exciting research opportunities
that currently exist, that merge research
and STEM and the humanities,
and especially that combine
science and literature.
You know, I think
with the modern university setup,
it’s quite easy to let ourselves
get channeled down
into a very specific focus,
but the reality is
that we need people who have
a diverse range of training and skills,
we need scientists who are
also writers and artists and musicians,
and we need artists
who are also scientists.
And this is useful
for designing theme parks,
but we really, really need it
for talking about climate science
and thinking about
how we communicate climate science.
So I initially did engineering
here at Dalhousie.
Like a lot of people, I had
a really hard time, I think,
picking what I wanted to do for my major.
I loved math and science;
I also really loved
writing and music and theater.
And I mean, I was very
happy in engineering.
I did co-op,
which meant that I got to sample
a number of work and research positions,
and I did end up doing
quite a bit of climate research,
so I worked in a number of climate labs.
And at the end I realized
that what I really wanted to do
was think about how that work in the lab
was distributed to the public,
how to be right about it.
How do people - what’s the history
of how people have written about science?
So after my engineering degree,
I was very fortunate
to get a Rhodes Scholarship
to study at the University of Oxford,
and this was - the Rhodes is amazing
because, particularly because
it gives you the freedom
to pursue whatever
course of study you choose.
So instead of doing graduate studies,
I decided to do
another undergraduate degree,
this time in English literature.
This was one of the best decisions
that I’ve ever made,
I was able to return to a lot
of these historical scientific texts
and mathematical texts
I encountered in engineering,
but this time from a completely
different perspective,
and I was also able to take techniques
and skills from engineering and math
and apply them to literary texts.
So one of my favorite projects
that I worked on
was a coding analysis of Shakespeare.
So I was really interested
in how current performers were dealing
with rhythmically complicated
bits of Shakespeare.
How were these rhythms in Shakespeare
actually being heard on the modern stage?
So I took audio from a whole bunch
of different performances,
and I had code and programs
that would break down
how long the actors spent
on each syllable.
And you could get plots
to visualize the rhythm
and metrics and stats to analyze
what choices were being made
or the effect that this was having.
And I mean, I had a lot of fun;
it was really exciting.
And this is really only a small window
into the kind of digital humanities
research that’s currently happening.
This is a really exciting research area,
and I mean, probably
the most famous example
of this kind of research
is authorship debates.
There is - you can,
with statistical analysis
and computer analysis,
researchers are analyzing
the grammar and the syntax
and the word usage of texts
to help settle debates
over who wrote what.
So the Oxford Shakespeare editions
recently changed their attribution
to Shakespeare’s “Henry VI” plays
to be a collaboration
between Shakespeare and the playwright
Christopher Marlowe.
This is really fascinating research,
and I like to think of this kind of work
as science being applied to literature,
so the techniques of science and math
being turned on these literary texts.
And for this type of research to work,
you really need people
who have a diverse range of training.
You need literary scholars
who have a strong background
in stats and in math,
and you need mathematicians
who are interested
in work in literary texts
and who are interested in collaborating.
I know for me it was really exciting
to take code and techniques
that I previously used
for phytoplankton modeling
and greenhouse gas detection
and apply them to Shakespeare;
it’s just a lot of fun.
So that’s sort of science on literature.
But the opposite relationship also works,
which is taking techniques
of literary analysis
and turning them back
on science and scientific texts.
And this can raise
so many interesting questions
because we’re looking at
these historical texts,
which are, you know, 200-,
300- or far older-years old,
and they are now texts
that form the foundation
for a lot of modern science.
And so we can think about
how are these texts working?
Who is their audience?
How are they communicating?
What they’re trying to communicate.
These historical scientists
and natural philosophers
were often speaking
to a much broader public.
They were speaking to people
who maybe hadn’t seen
what the scientists themselves
had seen under a telescope
or through a telescope or a microscope,
and they were often trying to make a case
for their value of the work.
You know, you have Robert Hooke,
who is looking through his microscope
and he’s writing about it,
and he’s trying to convince people
that it’s even worth the time
and the energy to look at things
under a microscope.
In my degree, I looked at the work
of William Herschel,
who was an astronomer,
who’s now best known as the person
who discovered the planet Uranus.
But he has whole portions of his texts -
again, he’s talking to an audience
who largely hasn’t seen
what he’s seen through his telescope.
And he has a portion in one of his texts
where he just describes
leading the reader
up stairs into the stars,
and the stars are written about as coming
towards the reader as you get closer.
And it’s an incredible piece of writing.
And really, Herschel
and these other scientists are using
incredibly rich literary illusions
and metaphors and references
to try to communicate their work,
and this is really the realm
for literary scholars to look at.
There’s so much value
that can be gained from thinking
about how could these texts work,
how has science been communicated
and how is it being communicated now?
So that’s sort of literary
techniques on science,
and that brings me to my final point,
which is the importance
of these interdisciplinary studies
and people with a broad range
of techniques and interests,
especially when it comes to talking
about climate science.
So I mean, of course, we’re at
a point now
where we have so much research coming out
and so much coming out of the lab
and such a difficulty in getting it
to reach people and connect with people.
There’s a lot of climate apathy.
I think we all know
the feeling of you see the article pop up
and you know it’s important
and you just don’t want to deal
with it right now.
So how do we get people interested
and get people engaged
and trust in what’s coming up in the lab?
And, you know, this is a problem
that’s not just with scientists;
this is a problem
that’s also for the artists
and for people who do both.
So my current research - I’m currently
doing a masters in the history of science,
and I’m looking at how people
in the early 19th century
brought about changes to their climate.
And this is really interesting period,
because, for example, in 1816,
there was a year that became known
as “The Year Without A Summer.”
So there was across North America
and Europe, there was terrible weather,
it was cold, it was dark and rainy,
there were crop failures
and food shortages,
there was talk of apocalypse,
and poet Byron wrote a poem
about the sun going cold
and the Earth going dark.
So I’m really interested in
how are people writing about this period?
We now know that these effects
were caused by the eruption
of Mount Tambora in Indonesia,
but at the time, people didn’t know
it was causing it.
I’m interested in what forms of writing
emerged of this kind of event,
how were poets and early
meteorologists and scientists
writing about it and describing it?
And who was the public
looking to for explanations?
And I think there’s so much
that we can learn
about the relationship between literature
and science and climate at the time,
and also for our current situation.
So I mean, there are many
other projects that are merging
at this kind of intersection point.
We have environmental humanities networks
which are getting a bunch
of disciplines together
to talk about issues like this.
We have environmental history.
There are all kinds of projects
that you really wouldn’t expect
that are bridging these fields
and bridging the gap
between the arts and the sciences.
And for this to work,
you really need scientists
who are engaged and interested
in such things broadly beyond their field,
and you need artists
and humanities scholars
who are equally engaged in the sciences.
And I think there are so many
other research areas
which don’t exist yet
but definitely could and should
that utilize these
disciplinary connections.
So in conclusion,
I guess I just want to say,
if you are a science student,
if you’re in engineering,
take that humanities elective.
Don’t take it just because you have to,
take one that you’re really
excited about and interested in.
Read widely.
If you are a writer,
if you play an instrument,
keep those things up.
You never know what kind
of really exciting research project
that might lead to down the road,
and you know, even if you don’t end up
designing animatronic movie puppets,
it’ll make you a better
and more well-rounded scientist engineer.
And if you’re a humanities student,
the humanities are not soft
or less cutting edge; they’re essential.
They’re how we communicate
and relate to each other
and hold each other accountable.
And I guess I would say,
you know, go to that,
take that weird science elective,
go to the lecture on Newton,
read up on the sciences
that you’re interested in
and stay up to date.
You never know,
maybe it’ll inspire
a great piece of science fiction
or you never know,
the next great climate novel.
And we need it.
Thank you.