Science and Literature in Cormac McCarthy’s Expanding Worlds

Bryan Giemza (Author)

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Description

Bryan Giemza challenges the myth of the solitary genius, both in scientific and humanistic endeavors, and demonstrates how Cormac McCarthy is the exceptional figure whose work allows and encourages us to interrogate the marriage of the sciences and humanities.

Drawing from previously unsurfaced archival connections as well as a range of primary sources and interview subjects, including those close to McCarthy, Giemza places McCarthy's work within contemporary scientific discourse and literary criticism. Timely and innovative in both content and structure, the volume includes a biographical examination of the writer's love of science and the path that led him to the Santa Fe Institute and offers a rare look behind its closed doors.

The book probes the STEM subjects – with chapters focused on technology, engineering, and math – within and throughout McCarthy's fictional universe and biography. The final chapter explores McCarthy's friendship with Guy Davenport and their shared interest in creating a unified aesthetic theory alongside McCarthy's essays and most recent literary projects, The Passenger and Stella Maris. In arguing that science and art are connected by aesthetics, Giemza confirms the profound truth of McCarthy's unwavering belief that "There's a beauty to science" and a language of human understanding that transcends words.

List of Figures
1. Introduction: The Trail to Santa Fe and to the Stars (and Why It's Good Craic)
Science
2. Starting from a Unified Place: How Chirality and Handedness Inform McCarthy's Universe
Technology
3. Blowing Up Knoxville: How Domestic Terrorism and Actual Misadventures with Dynamite Shaped McCarthy's World
Engineering and the Built Environment
4. Hypanthropic Times: How the Tennessee Valley Authority Sculpted the Mountains, Drifted the McCarthy Family, and Flooded Cormac's Imagination
Math
5. Unified Minds and Fractured Minds: Toward No Probable Conclusions
Acknowledgments
Index

Product details

Published	04 May 2023
Format	Ebook (PDF)
Edition	1st
Extent	184
ISBN	9781501383793
Imprint	Bloomsbury Academic
Illustrations	20 bw illus
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing

Author

Bryan Giemza

Bryan Giemza is Associate Professor of Humanities…

Giemza has been able to probe the role of science in shaping McCarthy's imagination in a way few others have had an opportunity to do ... An essential companion for anyone interested in a deeper scholarly and thematic treatment of McCarthy and his works.

Philip D. Bunn, The University Bookman
Bryan Giemza's groundbreaking study of the integration of science and humanities in Cormac McCarthy's fiction is both beautifully written and compelling. His investigation into McCarthy's scientific fascination and his experience at the Santa Fe Institute offers a convergence of what too often are viewed as disparate cultures, instead positing imaginative symmetries which yield fresh and provocative insights.

Robert Newman, President, National Humanities Center, USA
If you ever wished you could probe the mind of Cormac McCarthy to untangle the complexities of his novels, Bryan Giemza has written a fascinating manual with valuable keys to explicating much of McCarthy's later work.

Dennis McCarthy, author of The Gospel According to Billy the Kid (2021)