Description
University of Toronto Press Marking Time by Joel Faflak
Scholars have long studied the impact of Charles Darwin's writings on nineteenth-century culture. However, few have ventured to examine the precursors to the ideas of Darwin and others in the Romantic period. Marking Time, edited by Joel Faflak, analyses prevailing notions of evolution by tracing its origins to the literary, scientific, and philosophical discourses of the long nineteenth century. The volume's contributors revisit key developments in the history of evolution prior to The Origin of Species and explore British and European Romanticism's negotiation between the classic idea of a great immutable chain of being and modern notions of historical change. Marking Time reveals how Romantic and post-Romantic configurations of historical, socio-cultural, scientific, and philosophical transformation continue to exert a profound influence on critical and cultural thought. List of Illustrations Marking Time: Romanticism and Evolution Joel Faflak Part 1 Romanticism's Darwin 1. Plants, Analogy, and Perfection: Loose and Strict Analogies Gillian Beer 2. Darwin and the Mobility of Species Alan Bewell 3. Darwin's Ideas Matthew Rowlinson Part 2 Romantic Temporalities 4. Deep Time in the South Pacific: Scientific Voyaging and the Ancient/Primitive Analogy Noah Heringman 5. Malthus Our Contemporary?: Toward a Political Economy of Sex Maureen N. McLane Part 3 Goethe and the Contingencies of Life 6. Goethe's Morphology G bor ron Zempl n 7. Vertiginous Life: Goethe, Bones, and Italy Andrew Piper 8. Taking Chances Theresa M. Kelley Part 4 Evolutionary Idealisms 9. Did Goethe and Schelling Endorse Species Evolution? Robert J. Richards 10. The Vitality of Idealism: Life and Evolution in Schelling's and Hegel's Systems Tilottama Rajan 11. Degeneration: Inversions of Teleology Joan Steigerwald Contributors Index