Radical science : plants, agency, and nineteenth-century British narrative / Mary Bowden.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bowden, Mary K., Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Literature and science--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Literature and science.

Plants in literature.

Botany in literature.

Narration (Rhetoric).

English fiction--19th century--History and criticism.

English fiction.

English fiction--History and criticism.

Literature and science--History.

Great Britain.

Genre:

Literary criticism.

Physical Description:

205 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Columbus : The Ohio State University Press, [2026]

Summary:

"Expands beyond Charles Darwin's work in physiological botany to examine how nineteenth-century debates about plants' agency were also applied to people throughout literary and popular discussions of race, gender, and class, covering writers such as Elizabeth Gaskell, Charles Kingsley, H.G. Wells, and Erasmus, Charles, and Francis Darwin"-- Provided by publisher.

Can plants move? Can they think? Can they act? In Radical Science, Mary Bowden shows that debates about plants’ capabilities are not new but can be traced to the nineteenth century, where they moved from scientific inquiries to popular articles and literary fiction. Examining the work of nineteenth-century physiological botanists, Bowden expands beyond Charles Darwin’s work in the field to uncover the full story of these debates and the impacts they had on literature, culture, and people. While many have interpreted the frequent comparisons between plants and people in nineteenth-century literature to be exemplative of aesthetic values or sexual symbolism, Bowden maintains that comparisons between plants and women, members of the working class, and people of color reiterate botanical debates about how to recognize agency in beings that are assumed to be passive. Studying the scientific texts of Darwin and Maria Elizabetha Jacson alongside social problem novels by Elizabeth Gaskell and Charles Kingsley and early science fiction by H. G. Wells, Radical Science foregrounds the connection between science and literature and ultimately suggests that we look to the propositions of nineteenth-century physiological botany to find more sustaining models of social and environmental relationship.

Contents:

Introduction: Plant plots

Physiological botany's radical roots

Plant-people in the social problem novel

Charles Darwin's radicle science

H.G. Wells's plantocenes

Conclusion: Seeing plants.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 181-197) and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Bowden, Mary K. Radical science.

ISBN:

9780814216095

0814216099

OCLC:

1532840754

Publisher Number:

CIPO000355653