Narrative Research


I hold a double Ph.D. in the History of Science and English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 1990-91, I was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship for the Interdisciplinary Study of the Humanities. In 1993, and 1995, I was awarded research grants by the Dudley Observatory. In 1997-98, I received a Summer Stipend from the National Endowment for the Humanities and a Fellowship from the Howard Foundation of Brown University toward a full year of research. Other awards include: commendations for teaching excellence, National Graduate Fellowship from the U.S. Dept. of Education, National Science Foundation Travel Award, Phi Beta Kappa.

My research concerns the interdisciplinary study of literature, history and science, especially the interactions of astronomy, culture and literary expression from the Scientific Revolution to the present. My book manuscript, Beneath the Stars: A 'Literary' History of Astronomy, Women and Poetics, 1590-1990, will be the first full-length work since those of Marjorie Nicolson (over forty years ago) to offer a historical, rhetorical and cultural analysis of the interrelations of literature, astronomy and cosmology. Combining models of literary history with history of science, my study will evaluate intellectual exchange among poets, novelists, astronomers and popularizers of astronomy from the Scientific Revolution through the present, utilizing close interpretative readings of primary literary and scientific texts to investigate concerns of gender and science.

I am the editor of An Encyclopedia of Literature and Science (Greenwood Press, exp. 2000), an interdisciplinary reference work of approximately 700 thematic and topical articles. The mission of the encyclopedia is to introduce university students and their instructors in literature, the humanities and sciences to interdisciplinary literature and science studies and to provide a readily accessible resource for information about allied areas for those already working in a specialized area of literature and science. Upon completion, the volume will have one hundred contributors from thirty different academic and nonacademic specialties and twenty countries.

During the past year, I completed work on an invited article, "Literature and the Physical Sciences," for the important Cambridge History of Science, Volume 5: Modern Physical and Mathematical Sciences, edited by Mary Jo Nye. I am continuing work on a theoretical essay on the poetics of historiography of science, tentatively entitled, "Toward a 'Literary' History of Science," which explores the value of interdisciplinary approaches in the history of science and the nature of evidence available to historians of science in literary artifacts, especially poetry. I have begun assembling the complete manuscript for the Encyclopedia of Literature and Science. I have completed my three year term as a member of the History of Science Society's Committee on Research in the Profession which saw the acceptance of my proposal for the production of an electronic guide to publication in the history of science to be posted on the HSS website. At the end of 1998, I agreed to serve on the Program Committee for the Society of Literature and Science's annual conference to be held in Norman, OK, co-sponsored by the University of Oklahoma and the University of Texas-Dallas.