Literature, Science, and Public Policy

Literature, Science, and Public Policy shows how literature and literary study can help shape public policy concerning controversial scientific issues such as genetic engineering, cloning, GMOs, gene editing, and more. Literature brings unique insights to these issues, dramatizing their full complexity. Its value for public policy is demonstrated by striking examples in chapters that take us from the literary response to evolution in the Victorian era through the modern synthesis of evolution and genetics in the mid-twentieth century to present-day genomics. Outlining practical steps for humanists who want to train in the field, this book offers vivid readings of novels by H. G. Wells, H. Rider Haggard, Aldous Huxley, Robert Heinlein, Octavia Butler, Samuel R. Delany, David Mitchell, Margaret Atwood, Ian McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro, Gary Shteyngart, and others who illustrate the important insights that literary studies can bring to debates about science policy. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Jay Clayton is Kenan Professor of English, Communication of Science and Technology, and Cinema and Media Arts at Vanderbilt University. Author of numerous books and articles on topics ranging from Victorian literature to digital media, he is the recipient of the Susanne M. Glasscock Prize for Interdisciplinary Scholarship.