Ether And Modernity

Ether and Modernity offers a snapshot of the status of an epistemic object, the "ether" (or "aether"), in the early twentieth century. The contributed papers show that the ether was often regarded as one of the objects of modernity, hand in hand with the electron, radioactivity or X-rays, and not simply as the stubborn residue of an old-fashioned, long-discarded science. The prestige and authority of scientists and popularisers like Oliver Lodge and Arthur Eddington in Britain, Phillip Lenard in Germany or Dayton C. Miller in the USA was instrumental in the preservation, defence or even re-emergence of the ether in the 1920s. Moreover, the consolidation of wireless communications and radio broadcasting, indeed a very modern technology, brought the ether into audiences that would otherwise never have heard about such an esoteric entity. The ether also played a pivotal role among some artists in the early twentieth century: the values of modernism found in the complexities and contradictions of modern physics, such as wireless action or wave-particle puzzles, a fertile ground for the development of new artistic languages; in literature as much as in the pictorial and performing arts. Essays on the intellectual foundations of Umberto Boccioni's art, the linguistic techniques of Lodge, and Ernst Mach's considerations on aesthetics and physics witness to the imbricate relationship between the ether and modernism. Last but not least, the ether played a fundamental part in the resurgence of modern spiritualism in the aftermath of the Great War. This book examines the complex array of meanings, strategies and milieus that enabled the ether to remain an active part in scientific and cultural debates well into the 1930s, but not beyond. This portrait may be easily regarded as the swan song of an epistemic object that was soon to fade away as shown by Paul Dirac's unsuccessful attempt to resuscitate some kind of aether in 1951, with which this book finishes.

How is the literary imaginary shaped by an understanding of the materiality of the universe? More specifically, if an author believed the universe was composed of a substance called ether, how did that impact the worldviews represented in their fiction? Today "the ether" refers to a mysterious realm into which car keys disappear and where emails languish, but before Einsteinian relativity became accepted in the 1920s, and for at least a decade afterward, the ether was an established scientific concept that formed the backbone of electromagnetics. Electricity, light, and radio were all believed to be waves carried by the luminiferous (or light-bearing) ether. What began as a mechanical explanation for the propagation of light waves ultimately became the hypothesized foundation for myriad phenomena - even, according to late-nineteenth century universal ether theories, matter. In the British literary imaginary, the ether's role as unifying principle of the physical universe was expanded further: it became the concept through which other forms of connection - media, empire, and Spiritualism - could be represented. This dissertation argues that British authors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries used the ether to represent and conceptualize continuity in narratives of modernity. In theorizing the role of the ether in literature, this dissertation advances an alternative understanding of literary Modernism that is based in mainstream culture. Traditional understandings of Modernism, grounded in elite, "highbrow" texts, characterize it in terms of formal experimentation that responds to the fragmentation, isolation, and rupture of modernity. I approach Modernism instead by using historicism and new materialism to examine fictional representations of the ether in texts that are mostly popular or middlebrow. These texts characterize the experience of modernity in terms of connection: telecommunication, imperialism, and spiritualist connection with the afterlife are figured in terms of the ethereally connected universe. I uncover an understanding of Modernism founded on continuity rather than discontinuity, and that acknowledges the Victorian and the Modern as two ends of a historical continuum rather than distinctly separate periods. Ultimately, this dissertation reconstructs the atmosphere, both literal and cultural, in which Victorian and Modernist literature circulated

This is a new release of the original 1925 edition.

Containing 609 encyclopedic articles written by more than 200 prominent scholars, The Oxford Companion to the History of Modern Science presents an unparalleled history of the field invaluable to anyone with an interest in the technology, ideas, discoveries, and learned institutions that have shaped our world over the past five centuries. Focusing on the period from the Renaissance to the early twenty-first century, the articles cover all disciplines (Biology, Alchemy, Behaviorism), historical periods (the Scientific Revolution, World War II, the Cold War), concepts (Hypothesis, Space and Time, Ether), and methodologies and philosophies (Observation and Experiment, Darwinism). Coverage is international, tracing the spread of science from its traditional centers and explaining how the prevailing knowledge of non-Western societies has modified or contributed to the dominant global science as it is currently understood. Revealing the interplay between science and the wider culture, the Companion includes entries on topics such as minority groups, art, religion, and science's practical applications. One hundred biographies of the most iconic historic figures, chosen for their contributions to science and the interest of their lives, are also included. Above all The Oxford Companion to the History of Modern Science is a companion to world history: modern in coverage, generous in breadth, and cosmopolitan in scope. The volume's utility is enhanced by a thematic outline of the entire contents, a thorough system of cross-referencing, and a detailed index that enables the reader to follow a specific line of inquiry along various threads from multiple starting points. Each essay has numerous suggestions for further reading, all of which favor literature that is accessible to the general reader, and a bibliographical essay provides a general overview of the scholarship in the field. Lastly, as a contribution to the visual appeal of the Companion, over 100 black-and-white illustrations and an eight-page color section capture the eye and spark the imagination.

The two-volume work Modernism has been awarded the prestigious 2008 MSA Book Prize! Modernism has constituted one of the most prominent fields of literary studies for decades. While it was perhaps temporarily overshadowed by postmodernism, recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in modernism on both sides of the Atlantic. These volumes respond to a need for a collective and multifarious view of literary modernism in various genres, locations, and languages. Asking and responding to a wealth of theoretical, aesthetic, and historical questions, 65 scholars from several countries test the usefulness of the concept of modernism as they probe a variety of contexts, from individual texts to national literatures, from specific critical issues to broad cross-cultural concerns. While the chief emphasis of these volumes is on literary modernism, literature is seen as entering into diverse cultural and social contexts. These range from inter-art conjunctions to philosophical, environmental, urban, and political domains, including issues of race and space, gender and fashion, popular culture and trauma, science and exile, all of which have an urgent bearing on the poetics of modernity.

Vibratory Modernism is a collection of original essays that show how vibrations provide a means of bridging science and art - two fields that became increasingly separate in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.