Crosstalk, Mutation, Chaos:

bridge-building between the sciences and literary studies
using Visual Analogy

Practical version

This paper uses visual representations, taken mostly from the sciences, to open up a fascinating mode of discussion in literary studies.  The scientific analogies realised here not only bridge the humanities-science divide, but also act as good introductions to new topics.  They can communicate their concepts efficiently, by visual means, across language barriers; there’s even something here to assist with essay structures.  The value of these analogies isn’t so much to do with theoretical or practical rigour, but the way they liberate staff and students to explore and extend, by interdisciplinary means, their understanding of such subjects as poetry, translation and Intertextuality.  All in all, visual analogy helps us to introduce to literary discourse a fresh stock of exciting visual ideas for immediate application in teaching and research.

This version of the paper focuses on the application of visual analogies in classroom and seminar.  For a more detailed assessment of its underlying ideas and principles, see the In-depth version [click here].

To inspect any particular figure (whilst reading text on screen): click on the thumbnail to bring up that figure in a separate window.  To download text (Practical version): click here. To download all figures (Practical version): click here. WHEN PRINTING: note that the text pdf does not include figures. You will need to print both the text pdf and the figures pdf.

Figure 1a Figure 1b Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6 Figure 7a Figure 7b Figure 8