In The Scientific Sublime, Gross reveals the modern-day sublime in popular science. He shows how the great scientists of our time evoke the sublime in response to fundamental questions: How did the universe begin? How did life?
Chapter 1: Isn't Science Sublime?
Part I: The Physicists
Chapter 2: Richard Feynman: The Consensual Sublime
Chapter 3: Steven Weinberg: The Conjectural Sublime
Chapter 4. Lisa Randall: The Technological Sublime
Chapter 5. Brian Greene: The Speculative Sublime
Chapter 6. Stephen Hawking: The Scientific Sublime Embodied
Part II: The Biologists
Chapter 7. Rachel Carson: The Ethical Sublime
Chapter 8. Stephen Jay Gould's Books: The Balanced Sublime
Chapter 9. Stephen Jay Gould's Essays: Experiencing the Sublime
Chapter 10. Steven Pinker: The Polymath Sublime
Chapter 11. Richard Dawkins: The Mathematical Sublime
Chapter 12. E. O. Wilson: The Biophilic Sublime
Part III
Chapter 13. Move Over, God
Alan G. Gross is a Professor Emeritus of Communication Studies at
the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and a National
Communication Association Distinguished Scholar. His specialty is
scientific communication. He is the author of The Rhetoric of
Science and co-author of Communicating Science, The Scientific
Literature, The Craft of Scientific Communication, Science from
Sight to Insight, and The Internet Revolution in the
Sciences and Humanities.
"...a very attractively written and interesting book... [it] can
serve as a perfect source of information about the best science
popularisation works. It may be used to ignite the interest of
readers and move them to reading the texts presented in the book in
their original form." -- Elena Maceviciute, : University of Borås,
Information Research
"With clarity and elegance, Alan Gross introduces readers of The
Scientific Sublime to contemporary scientists who are prose artists
and whose works have introduced the public to extremely-scaled
phenomena, from quantum mechanics and cosmology to panoramic
theories of evolution. Extending the rhetorical concept of the
sublime as a form of overwhelming persuasion, Gross points out the
effects of his chosen writers' visionary descriptions and
theorizing.
In doing so he creates a new critical term, the scientific sublime,
that will inform future assessments of the science writing of any
era. His final chapter is a surprising and bracing retreat from
appreciation, as Gross points out the moral and human sublime,
beyond the expertise of his model authors, that requires other
forms of artistic expression." -- Jeanne Fahnestock, University of
Maryland
"Alan G. Gross is a Science Studies pioneer, with lots of the rest
of us standing on his shoulders, and this may be his best work,
certainly the most gracefully written, compulsively readable, and
wittiest of his books. Decidedly, the most fun. That would be worth
the price of admission on its own. But it's not on its own. The
Scientific Sublime also gives us portraits of some of our most
eloquent scientists and science writers-Rachel Carson, E.O.
Wilson, Steven Pinker, Richards Feynman and Dawkins-with Gross not
only charting out that eloquence but sometimes matching it, in
prose that bristles with insights and urbanities, and, on occasion,
flares into a
take-no-prisoners acerbity that would also be at home with some of
those writers."-- Randy Harris, University of Waterloo
"In this beautifully written, engaging and perceptive book, Gross
has tracked the idea of the sublime from its origins in pre-modern
western culture to the popularizations of science of the last half
century. He shows how influential physicists and biologists have
united to present a vast epic that attempts to explain the origin
and meaning of life-an account that competes with the Biblical
narrative. Anyone interested in what modern science tells us
about
humanity's place in nature must read this book." -- Bernard V.
Lightman, York University
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