Science, Technology, and Literature
The ethical implications of science and technology found in literaturre are varied and often implicit as well as explicit. A beginning survey may reasonably include the following non-exhaustive set of topics: the content of narratives that make asseissments of science and technology; orality, writing , printing, and electronic communication as technologies involving certain cultural contexts; and scientific theaories, experiments, and practices as sociocultural influences on literature. (Assessment of the stylistic and rhetorical strategies of science and technology, while also related, are treated in a separate entry.) Scholars in traditional disciplines have often touched on these topics, but only in the 1970s did interdisciplinary fields—the history of the book, science and technology studies, literature and science studies, and cultural studies—begin to give such concerns extensive attention. Tracing ethical aspects of science, technology, and literature calls for examining oratory, writing, printing, and electronic communication as technologies developed in cultural contexts; studying scientific theories, experiments, and practices as sociocultural influences on literature; assessing stylistic and narrative strategies in scientific discourse, including histories and philosophies of science, and elucidating how literary works and theories interpret and reconfigure science and technology as human endeavors. Scholars in traditional disciplines have touched on these topics for many years, but only in since the late 1970s have interdisciplinary fields—the history of the book, science and technology studies (STS), literature and science studies, and cultural studies—flourished to focus on such concerns.
