In 2022 the JLS will be undergoing a website upgrade. There may be times when not all content is available. You may also see new features to the website as the upgrade progresses.

The 2021 special issue on genetics will be fully available from Spring 2022.

2022 will also see the production of the usual 2 issues per year: July and December.

Thank you for your continued support of the JLS.

Always open-access, always free for authors and readers.

Following the success of the JLS/BSLS essay prize in previous years, The JLS and the British Society for Literature and Science would like to announce the 2019 prize for the best new essay by an early career scholar on a topic within the field of literature and science.

Essays should be currently unpublished and not under consideration by another journal. They should be approx. 8,000 words long, inclusive of references, and should be sent by email to both Will Tattersdill, Communications Officer of the BSLS (w.j.tattersdill@bham.ac.uk), and Martin Willis, Editor of the JLS (willism8@cardiff.ac.uk), by 12 noon on Friday, 30th August, 2019

The prize is open to BSLS members who are postgraduate students or have completed a doctorate within three years of this date.
(To join BSLS, go to http://www.bsls.ac.uk/join-us/).

The prize will be judged jointly by representatives of the BSLS and JLS. The winning essay will be announced on the BSLS website and published in the JLS. The winner will also receive a prize of £100.

Read previous prize winning essays in the JLS: www.literatureandscience.org

(The judges reserve the right not to award the prize should no essay of a high enough standard be submitted.)

1. Kimberley Dimitriadis, “Telescopes in the Drawing Room: Geometry and Astronomy in George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss.” (JLS 11.1)

2. John Holmes, “Literature and Science vs History of Science.” (JLS 5.2)

3=. Catherine Belling, “Arts, Sciences, Humanities: Triangulating the Two Cultures.” (JLS 10.2)
3=. David Clifford, “A Long Anthropological Perspective on the Humanities.” (JLS 10.2)

1. Martin Willis, Keir Waddington & James Castell, “ScienceHumanities: Theory, Politics, Practice.” (JLS 10.2)

2. Catherine Belling, “Arts, Sciences, Humanities: Triangulating the Two Cultures.” (JLS 10.2)

3. Charlotte Sleigh, “Contexts of Encounter: How and Where to Criticise Art and Science.” (JLS 10.2)

With the publication of Volume 11, Issue 2 the JLS celebrates its tenth anniversary issue. Over that time the JLS has published the work of significant scholars of literature and science internationally, both established and early career. The journal has also published nearly a hundred reviews of the most important articles published elsewhere during that time.

As part of the celebrations, we announce here the most downloaded article of our ten year history:

Rachel Crossland, ‘”Multitudinous and Minute”: Early Twentieth-Century Scientific, Literary and Psychological Representations of the Mass’

Rachel’s article was the inaugural winner of the Journal of Literature and Science and British Society for Literature and Science Essay Prize and was published in Volume 6.2 in 2013.

Many congratulations to Rachel!

1. Martin Willis, Keir Waddington & James Castell, “ScienceHumanities: Theory, Politics, Practice.” (JLS 10.2)

2. Charlotte Sleigh, “Contexts of Encounter: How and Where to Criticise Art and Science.” (JLS 10.2)

3. Catherine Belling, “Arts, Sciences, Humanities: Triangulating the Two Cultures.” (JLS 10.2)

1. John Holmes, “Consilience Rebalanced: Edward O. Wilson on Science, the Humanities and the Meaning of Human Existence.” (JLS 10.1)

2. Rachel Murray, “Vermicular Origins: The Creative Evolution of Samuel Beckett’s Worm.” (JLS 9.2)

3. Padma V. McKertich and V. Shilpa, “’It happens quietly’: Plant Poetry and the Botanification of the Imagination” (JLS 9.2)

Many congratulations to John, Rachel, and Padma & V. Shilpa.

JLS contributors and readers responded enthusiastically to the publication for the first time of key statistics in June 2016. Here are our three key indicators from July 1st to December 31st 2017. (The figures in brackets are those for the previous six month period).

Views: 17,056 (13,161)

Downloads of Most Read Articles – aggregated: 1,368 (678)

Geographic Reach: JLS accessed in 92 (98) countries

1. John Holmes, “Literature and Science vs History of Science” (JLS 5.2)

2. Ralph O’Connor, “The Meanings of ‘Literature’ and the Place of Modern Scientific Nonfiction in Literature and Science.” (JLS 10.1)

3. Jay A. Labinger, “Where are the Scientists in Literature and Science?” (JLS 10.1)

1. John Holmes, “Consilience Rebalanced: Edward O. Wilson on Science, the Humanities and the Meaning of Human Existence.” (JLS 10.1)

2. Kanta Dihal, “On Science Fiction As a Separate Field.” (JLS 10.1)

3. Darren N. Wagner & Joanna Wharton, “Literature and Science in Eighteenth-Century Studies: Mountain Gloom or Mountain Glory?” (JLS 10.1)

1. John Holmes, “Consilience Rebalanced: Edward O. Wilson on Science, the Humanities and the Meaning of Human Existence.” (JLS 10.1)

2. Abigail Droge, “Teaching Literature and Science in Silicon Valley.” (JLS 10.1)

3. Laura Otis, “Thirty Years of Interdisciplinary Research: The Future Promise of SLSA.” (JLS 10.1)

JLS contributors and readers responded enthusiastically to the publication for the first time of key statistics in June 2016. Here are our three key indicators from January 1st to June 31st 2017. (The figures in brackets are those for the previous six month period).

Views: 13,161 (15,452)

Downloads of Most Read Articles – aggregated: 678 (666)

Geographic Reach: JLS accessed in 98 (98) countries

1. Andrew Lacey, ‘Rethinking the Distribution of Cultural Capital in the “Safety Lamp Controversy”: Davy vs Stephenson in Letters to the Newcastle Press, 1816-17’ (JLS 9.2)

2. Rachel Murray, ‘Vermicular Origins: The Creative Evolution of Samuel Beckett’s Worm’ (JLS 9.2)

3. Kanta Dihal, “On Science Fiction As a Separate Field.” (JLS 10.1)

1. Rachel Murray, ‘Vermicular Origins: The Creative Evolution of Samuel Beckett’s Worm’ (JLS 9.2)

2. Padma V. McKertich and V. Shilpa, ‘
“It happens quietly”: Plant Poetry and the Botanification of the Imagination’ (JLS 9.2)

3. John Holmes
, ‘Algernon Swinburne, Anthropologist’ (JLS 9.1)

1. Padma V. McKertich and V. Shilpa, ‘
“It happens quietly”: Plant Poetry and the Botanification of the Imagination’ (JLS 9.2)

2. Andrew Lacey, ‘Rethinking the Distribution of Cultural Capital in the “Safety Lamp Controversy”: Davy vs Stephenson in Letters to the Newcastle Press, 1816-17’ (JLS 9.2)

3. Minna Vuohelainen, ‘“Cribb’d, Cabined and Confined”: Fear, Claustrophobia and Modernity in Richard Marsh’s Urban Gothic Fiction’(JLS 3.1)

1. Maria Avxentevskaya, “The Spiritual Optics of Narrative: John Wilkins’s popularization of Copernicanism” (JLS 8.2)

2. Kathryn Walls
, ‘The After-Lives of Vain Women in The Rape of the Lock: Pope’s Sylphs and the “Corpuscular Philosophy” of Robert Boyle’ (JLS 9.1)

3. Matthew Rowney
, ‘A Fearful Symmetry: Borges and the Geometric Language of the Brain’ (JLS 9.1)

Many congratulations to Maria, Kathryn and Matthew.

JLS contributors and readers responded enthusiastically to the publication for the first time of key statistics in June 2016. Here are our three key indicators from July 1st to December 31st 2016. (The figures in brackets are those for the previous six month period).

Views: 15,452 (13,396)

Downloads of Most Read Articles (collected): 666 (742)

Geographic Reach: JLS accessed in 98 (104) countries

1. Kathryn Walls
, ‘The After-Lives of Vain Women in The Rape of the Lock: Pope’s Sylphs and the “Corpuscular Philosophy” of Robert Boyle’ (JLS 9.1)

2. Matthew Rowney
, ‘A Fearful Symmetry: Borges and the Geometric Language of the Brain’ (JLS 9.1)

3. John Holmes
, ‘Algernon Swinburne, Anthropologist’(JLS 9.1)

1. Kathryn Walls
, ‘The After-Lives of Vain Women in The Rape of the Lock: Pope’s Sylphs and the “Corpuscular Philosophy” of Robert Boyle’ (JLS 9.1)

2. Matthew Rowney
, ‘A Fearful Symmetry: Borges and the Geometric Language of the Brain’ (JLS 9.1)

3. John Holmes
, ‘Algernon Swinburne, Anthropologist’(JLS 9.1)