1. Matthew Rowney , ‘A Fearful Symmetry: Borges and the Geometric Language of the Brain’ (JLS 9.1)
2. John Holmes , ‘Algernon Swinburne, Anthropologist’(JLS 9.1)
3. 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)
JLS contributors and readers may like to know the range and reach of the journal throughout 2016. Here, for the first time, are three key statistics from January 1st to June 30th 2016:
Views: 13,396
Downloads of Most Read Articles (collected): 742
Geographic Reach: JLS accessed in 104 countries
1. Maria Avxentevskaya, “The Spiritual Optics of Narrative: John Wilkins’s
popularization of Copernicanism” (JLS 8.2)
2. Charlotte Sleigh, “Writing the scientific self: Samuel Butler and Charles Hoy Fort” (JLS 8.2)
3. Martin Willis, Keir Waddington and Richard Marsden, “Imaginary Investments: Illness Narratives Beyond the Gaze: (JLS 6.1)
1. Maria Avxentevskaya, “The Spiritual Optics of Narrative: John Wilkins’s
popularization of Copernicanism” (JLS 8.2)
2. Rachel Falconer, “Facing the Other through Metaphor: Primo Levi’s The Periodic
Table and other writings” (JLS 8.2)
3. Alex Moffatt, “Swept Over an Etheric Niagara: The Persistence of the Etheric
Hypothesis in Arthur Conan Doyle’s Challenger Stories” (JLS 8.2)
1. Charlotte Sleigh, “Writing the scientific self: Samuel Butler and Charles Hoy Fort” (JLS 8.2)
2. Maria Avxentevskaya, “The Spiritual Optics of Narrative: John Wilkins’s
popularization of Copernicanism” (JLS 8.2)
3=. Rachel Falconer, “Facing the Other through Metaphor: Primo Levi’s The Periodic
Table and other writings” (JLS 8.2)
&
Alex Moffatt, “Swept Over an Etheric Niagara: The Persistence of the Etheric
Hypothesis in Arthur Conan Doyle’s Challenger Stories” (JLS 8.2)
Congratulations to the writers of the following articles, which were most often downloaded by JLS readers across the last calendar year:
1. Gregory Lynall, ‘Scriblerian Projections of Longitude: Arbuthnot, Swift, and the Agency of Satire in a Culture of Invention’ (Vol.7, No.2)
2. Bernard Lightman, ‘Contextualising Conan Doyle’s Ideal Reasoner: The Case of the Reluctant Scientific Naturalist’ (Vol.7, No.2)
3. Emilie Taylor-Brown, ‘(Re)constructing the Knights of Science: Parasitologists and their Literary Imaginations’ (Vol.7, No.2)
1. Minna Vuohelainen, ‘“Cribb’d, Cabined and Confined”: Fear, Claustrophobia and Modernity in Richard Marsh’s Urban Gothic Fiction’ (Vol.3, No.1)
2. Emilie Taylor-Brown, ‘(Re)constructing the Knights of Science: Parasitologists and their Literary Imaginations’ (Vol.7, No.2)
3. Alison E. Martin, ‘Performing Scientific Knowledge Transfer: Anne Plumptre and the Translation of Martin Heinrich Lichtenstein’s Reisen im südlichen Afrika (1811)’ (Vol.8, No.1)
1. Angela Byrne, ‘“My Little Readers”: Catharine Parr Traill’s Natural Histories for Children’ (Vol.8, No.1)
2. Bernard Lightman, ‘Contextualising Conan Doyle’s Ideal Reasoner: The Case of the Reluctant Scientific Naturalist’ (Vol.7, No.2)
3. Mary Orr, ‘The Stuff of Translation and Independent Female Scientific Authorship: the Case of Taxidermy…, anon. (1820)’ (Vol.8, No.1)
1. Gregory Lynall, ‘Scriblerian Projections of Longitude: Arbuthnot, Swift, and the Agency of Satire in a Culture of Invention’ (Vol.7, No.2)
2. Bernard Lightman, ‘Contextualising Conan Doyle’s Ideal Reasoner: The Case of the Reluctant Scientific Naturalist’ (Vol.7, No.2)
3. Shelley Trower, ‘Primitive Rocks: Humphry Davy, Mining, and the Sublime Landscapes of Cornwall’ (Vol.7, No.1)
1. Bernard Lightman, ‘Contextualising Conan Doyle’s Ideal Reasoner: The Case of the Reluctant Scientific Naturalist’ (Vol.7, No.2)
2. Gregory Lynall, ‘Scriblerian Projections of Longitude: Arbuthnot, Swift, and the Agency of Satire in a Culture of Invention’ (Vol.7, No.2)
3. Erika Behrisch Elce, ‘”One Remarkable Evening”: Redemptive Science in Wilkie Collins’s Heart and Science’ (Vol.7, No.1)
1. Steven McLean, ‘Revolution as an Angel from the Sky: George Griffith’s Aeronautical Speculation’ (Vol.7, No.2)
2. Emilie Taylor-Brown, ‘(Re)constructing the Knights of Science: Parasitologists and their Literary Imaginations’ (Vol.7, No.2)
3. Gregory Lynall, ‘Scriblerian Projections of Longitude: Arbuthnot, Swift, and the Agency of Satire in a Culture of Invention’ (Vol.7, No.2)
Across 2015 the news posts announcing the Most Downloaded articles had dropped from view due to a technical problem. A recent reset requires them to be uploaded again. You will now see a number of periods clustered together in recent posts. Apologies to those of you interested in this data who have been unable to see it for a period of time.
The JLS Copyeditor, Mark Bennett, has stepped down from his position to focus on his academic work. The JLS would like to thank Mark for his professional and expert work over the course of a number of years and issues. Mark has been instrumental in the success of the JLS, and his careful attention to the work of contributors was always greatly appreciated. We wish him the best of luck with his future plans.
Mark will be succeeded as copyeditor by Rebecca Spear, who begins her role with issue 8.1 (2015).
The JLS is pleased to announce that this year’s winner of the essay prize
jointly awarded with the British Society for Literature and Science is Maria
Avxentevskaya’s essay titled ‘The Spiritual Optics of Narrative: John Wilkins’s
Popularization of Copernicanism’.
We offer our many congratulations to Maria.
The judging panel wrote: “This a thoroughly convincing and exceptionally
well-argued essay that is a deserving winner of the 2015 prize. The reading of
Wilkins’s Discovery is consistently illuminating as an account of the logic of
early modern scientific argument and its appeal to probability according to
moral rather than empirical authority. The analysis is meticulous and builds up
to an impressively coherent picture. The move at the end of the essay to show
how Wilkins remains concerned to establish the truth of the physical world, and
not simply to win the rhetorical argument, is an important and salutary reminder
that we have to avoid imposing our own standards on early modern modes of
argument, as well as grounding Wilkins’s own shift to the position of a
founder of the Royal Society. The essay combines these acutely historicized
arguments with fine close reading to produce a work of real intellectual
achievement.”
As in previous years the level of competition was high, with some extremely good
essays on a range of literature and science topics submitted for consideration.
The judges were impressed by the vitality of the work and by the obvious
strength of the field.
Maria’s essay will appear in one of the next issues of the journal.
The Journal of Literature and Science and the British Society for Literature and Science would like to announce our annual prize for the best new essay by an early career scholar on a topic within the field of literature and science. The deadline for this year’s prize will be 19th June, in order to give members time to revise papers presented at the BSLS conference should they wish to.
Essays should be currently unpublished and not under consideration by another journal. They should be between 6,000 and 8,000 words long, inclusive of references, and should be send by email to both John Holmes, Chair of the BSLS (j.r.holmes@reading.ac.uk), and Martin Willis, Editor of JLS (m.willis@westminster.ac.uk), by 12 noon on Friday, 19th June, 2015.
The prize is open to BSLS members who are postgraduate students or have completed a doctorate within three calendar years of the deadline date. The Prize committee will consider on a case by case basis whether to accept submissions from anyone whose doctorate was completed more than three years prior to the deadline but whose career has been interrupted during that time (due to illness, maternity leave, etc.). Those who have submitted to the essay prize in previous years are very welcome to submit again. This includes any previous prize winners or honourable mentions.
The prize will be judged jointly by representatives of the BSLS and JLS.
To join BSLS (only £10 for postgraduates and unwaged members), go to http://www.bsls.ac.uk/join-us/.
The winning essay will be announced on the BSLS website and published in JLS. The winner will also receive a prize of £100. The judges reserve the right not to award the prize should no essay of a high enough standard be submitted.
The winning essays to date have been Rachel Crossland’s ‘”Multitudinous and Minute”: Early Twentieth-Century Scientific, Literary and Psychological Representations of the Mass’, published in JLS, 6.2 (2013), and Emilie Taylor-Brown’s ‘(Re)constructing the Knights of Science: Parasitologists and their Literary Imaginations’, published in JLS, 7.2 (2014). Josie Gill’s essay, ‘Science and Fiction in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth’ received an honourable mention from the judges and was published in JLS, 6.2 (2013). To read these essays, visit the issues listed.
January – February 2015
Most Downloaded Articles (all issues):
1. Steven McLean, ‘Revolution as an Angel from the Sky: George Griffith’s Aeronautical Speculation’ (Vol. 7, No. 2)
2. Bernard Lightman, ‘Contextualising Conan Doyle’s Ideal Reasoner: The Case of the Reluctant Scientific Naturalist’ (Vol. 7, No 2)
3. Emilie Taylor-Brown, ‘(Re)constructing the Knights of Science: Parasitologists and their Literary Imaginations’ (Vol. 7, No. 2)
Most Downloaded Reviews (all issues):
1. Carmel Raz, Review of John Savarese’s “Ossian’s Folk Psychology” (Vol. 7, No. 2)
2. Emily Bowles, Review of Cheryl Blake Price’s “Vegetable Monsters: Man-Eating Trees in Fin-de-Siècle Fiction” (Vol. 7, No. 2)
3. Peter Johnston, Review of Robert Nathan’s “Why It Matters: The Value of Literature as Object of Inquiry in Qualitative Research” (Vol. 7, No. 2)
The new year honours for 2014’s most downloaded articles go to:
1) Rachel Crossland, ‘”Multitudinous and Minute”: Early Twentieth-Century Scientific, Literary and Psychological Representations of the Mass’ (Vol. 6, No. 2)
2) Josie Gill, ‘Science and Fiction in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth‘ (Vol. 6, No. 2)
3) Ruth Murphy, ‘Darwin and 1860s Children’s Literature: Belief, Myth or Detritus’ (Vol. 5, No. 2)
November – December 2014
Most Downloaded Articles (all issues):
1. Erika Behrisch Elce, ‘”One Remarkable Evening”: Redemptive Science in Wilkie Collins’s Heart and Science‘ (Vol. 7, No. 1)
2. Martin Willis, Keir Waddington and Richard Marsden, ‘Imaginary Investments: Illness Narratives Beyond the Gaze’ (Vol. 6, No 1)
3. Verity Hunt, ‘Electric Leisure: Late Nineteenth-Century Dreams of Remote Viewing by “Telectroscope”‘ (Vol. 7, No. 1)
Most Downloaded Reviews (all issues):
1. Hannah Brunning, Review of Michael Davis’s “Mind and Matter in The Picture of Dorian Gray” (Vol. 7, No. 1)
2. Leigh Wilson, Review of Rachel Crossland’s “What D.H. Lawrence Understood of ‘The Einstein Theory’: Relativity in Fantasia of the Unconscious and Kangaroo” (Vol. 7, No. 1)
3. Anne M. Thell, Review of Noelle Gallagher’s “Satire as Medicine in the Restoration and Early Eighteenth Century: The History of a Metaphor” (Vol. 7, No. 1)
September – October 2014
Most Downloaded Articles (all issues):
1. Erika Behrisch Elce, ‘”One Remarkable Evening”: Redemptive Science in Wilkie Collins’s Heart and Science‘ (Vol 7, No. 1)
2. Ruth Murphy, ‘Darwin and 1860s Children’s Literature: Belief, Myth or Detritus’ (Vol 5, No. 2)
3. Rachel Crossland, ‘”Multitudinous and Minute”: Early Twentieth-Century Scientific, Literary and Psychological Representations of the Mass’ (Vol 6, No. 2)
Most Downloaded Reviews (all issues):
1. Hannah Brunning, Review of Michael Davis’s “Mind and Matter in The Picture of Dorian Gray” (Vol 7, No. 1)
2. Martin Willis, Review of Ellen Burton Harrington’s ‘Nation, identity and the fascination with forensic science in Sherlock Holmes and CSI’ (Vol 1, No. 1)
3. Ben De Bruyn, Review of Jay Clayton’s “The Ridicule of Time: Science Fiction, Bioethics and the Posthuman” (Vol 6, No. 2)
July – August 2014
Most Downloaded Articles (all issues):
1. Shelley Trower, ‘Primitive Rocks: Humphry Davy, Mining, and the Sublime Landscapes of Cornwall’ (Vol. 7, No. 1)
2. Verity Hunt, ‘Electric Leisure: Late Nineteenth-Century Dreams of Remote Viewing by “Telectroscope”‘ (Vol. 7, No. 1)
3. Megan Coyer, ‘The Embodied Damnation of James Hogg’s Justified Sinner’ (Vol. 7, No. 1)
Most Downloaded Reviews (all issues):
1. Anne M. Thell, Review of Noelle Gallagher’s “Satire as Medicine in the Restoration and Early Eighteenth Century: The History of a Metaphor” (Vol. 7, No. 1)
2. Hannah Brunning, Review of Michael Davis’s “Mind and Matter in The Picture of Dorian Gray” (Vol. 7, No. 1)
3. Lisa Coar, Review of Jessica Kuskey’s “Our Mutual Engine: The Economics of Victorian Thermodynamics” (Vol. 6, No. 2)