The Depiction of Enlightenment Science in Thomas Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon

master's thesis

• Author: Neven Brlek
• Mentor: Stipe Grgas (mentor)
• Committee member: Jelena Šesnić (predsjednik povjerenstva)
• Committee member: Sven Cvek (član povjerenstva)
• Committee member: Stipe Grgas (član povjerenstva)
• Granter: University of Zagreb; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences; (Department of English language and literature); Zagreb
• Defense date and country: 2021-06-18, Croatia
• Scientific / art field, discipline and subdiscipline: HUMANISTIC SCIENCES; Philology; Anglistics

Abstract

The paper offers a reading of Thomas Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon (1997) in terms of its portrayal of technology, science, and, more broadly, Enlightenment thought. The argument is that the novel’s main concern is the inability to separate science out from the culture in which it is practiced and that scientific and technological progress are therefore deeply vulnerable to exploitation by political and economic systems. This conjunction of science, culture and politics is evinced by considering... More three principal matters. Firstly, Mason’s and Dixon’s surveying of the notorious border between Pennsylvania and Maryland is explored, as is the way their work figures in American eighteenth-century history and culture, in relation to the revolutionary activity, land ownership, slavery, westward movement, relations with Native Americans, etc. Secondly, the paper assesses the way Pynchon’s two astronomers are implicated in a grander process of eighteenth-century globalization and the creation of the nascent British Empire. Finally, more abstract and indeed more pervading effects of the Age of Reason on eighteenth-century culture presented in the novel are considered, together with various ways of countering the totalizing effects of ‘Enlightened’ thought. Pynchon, it is shown, is in his novel exploring the differences between what the development of science in the period should have represented in its ideal version, and what it really represented—the establishment of power relations. Less

• Keywords: Thomas Pynchon; Mason & Dixon; Enlightenment; globalization; Royal Society; science; technology; 18th century
• Language: english
• URN:NBN: urn:nbn:hr:131:283184
• Study programme: Title: English Language and Literature (double major); specializations in: Linguistics, Literature and Culture, Translation, TEFL; Course: Literature and Culture; Study programme type: university; Study level: graduate; Academic / professional title: magistar/magistra engleskog jezika i književnosti (magistar/magistra engleskog jezika i književnosti)
• Type of resource: Text
• File origin: Born digital
• Access conditions: Open access
• Created on: 2021-06-18 10:01:51