Christine Lehleiter

Romanticism, Origins, and the History of Heredity (eBook, ePUB)

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

At the turn of the eighteenth century, selfhood was understood as a "tabularasa" to be imprinted in the course of an individual's life. By the middle of the nineteenth-century, however, the individual had become defined as determined by heredity already from birth. Examining novels by Goethe, Jean Paul, and E.T.A. Hoffmann, studies on plant hybridization, treatises on animal breeding, and anatomical collections, Romanticism, Origins, and the History of Heredity delineates how romantic authors imagined the ramifications of emerging notions of heredity for the conceptualization of selfhood. Focusing on three fields of inquiry-inbreeding and incest, cross-breeding and bastardization, evolution and autopoiesis-Christine Lehleiter proposes that the notion of selfhood for which Romanticism has become known was not threatened by considerations of determinism and evolution, but was in fact already a result of these very considerations. Romanticism, Origins and the History of Heredity will be of interest for literary scholars, historians of science, and all readers fascinated by the long durée of subjectivity and evolutionary thought.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury eBooks US
• Seitenzahl: 338
• Erscheinungstermin: 30. Oktober 2014
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781611485660
• Artikelnr.: 41986208

Autorenporträt

Christine Lehleiter is assistant professor of German at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on literature and the life sciences.

Inhaltsangabe

List of Illustrations
Notes on Translations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Between Freedom and Determination
One: The Discovery of Heredity
Two: Incest and Inbreeding
Three: Cross-breeding and Hybridization
Four: From Blood to Trauma
Bibliography
About the Author
Index