Writing Science Project

Visual Analogy

(Crosstalk, Mutation, Chaos)

Dr. Mario Petrucci

Royal Literary Fund Fellow

“An imaginative and stimulating attempt to build bridges between (physical) science and literary criticism by exploring the potential of scientifically-based visual analogies… of genuine value, particularly in an educational context.”
 
Howard Cattermole
(former editor, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews)
 
Potentially, visual analogy provides an excellent means of bridging the sciences and the humanities.  For students and tutors in either subject area, it can open up fresh routes of communication, especially for the purposes of cross-disciplinary study, education and research.  Those wishing to link science with other disciplines do well to explore the many latent, as well as actual, starting points at their disposal: visual analogy may represent a key (and sometimes underutilised) route by which all  subject-based communities can better interrelate.

The hope here is that the development of accessible and inviting visual analogies will stimulate a variety of cross-disciplinary outcomes, including:

  • a fresh supply of introductions and explanations across subject areas;
  • a stock of enticing visual resources for workshops and discussion (e.g. in literary studies);
  • novel tools to supplement more established modes of description, analysis and argument;
  • an expansion of cross-disciplinary activities that are creatively, as well as critically, engaged;
  • a flush of research possibilities and innovative hybrid theories;
  • the generation of new sites of Intertextual discourse;
  • fascinating visual spurs for creative writing or critical explorations.

The focus in this particular resource is to investigate literary studies via visual analogy, utilising a number of attractive (suitably visualized) examples taken principally from science and mathematics.  Throughout, there is an emphasis on ensuring that the science is kept as accessible as possible for non-scientists.  Prototype analogies link (for instance) the electromagnetic spectrum, chaos physics and Venn diagrams to topics as varied as translation, Intertextuality and essay structure.  The paper is cast in two forms:

  •  A shorter, more transparent version, centred on examples and applications;
  •  An in-depth version, which incorporates a full discussion of the underlying concepts.

The first of these is designed for users wishing to get quickly to the core educational ideas and illustrations; the second (more detailed) version includes an extended assessment of the approach, with references and a more expansive pedagogic appraisal.  Users can choose for themselves where best to begin: they can put these dynamic, easy-on-the-eye analogies to immediate use in the seminar room or study, or else engage with their deeper conceptual basis.  The ‘in-depth’ version carries ample discussion of contingent ideas, and a thoroughgoing account of the opportunities and difficulties associated with the use of visual analogies of this type.

Mario Petrucci is a long-term practitioner in science, ecology and literature.  Many of his most inventive ideas on cross-disciplinary creativity, research and education are as provocative as they are productive; his original – and timely – contributions to visual analogy are collected here, in this unique form, for the first time.

 
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