Laura Habbe How Does Late-Victorian Popular Fiction Subvert Scientific Authority?
Laura Habbe received her PhD in English from Trinity College Dublin. She also holds degrees in Comparative Literature (Trinity College Dublin) and Latin (University of St Andrews). At Trinity College Dublin, she taught as Teaching Assistant in the School of English. Her research interests include Victorian literature, popular fiction and the history and philosophy of science.
Area of Research
English Literature
2012-2015
Teaching Assistant
Trinity College Dublin
School of English
2008
Research Assistant
University of St Andrews
School of Classics
2017
PhD in English
Trinity College Dublin
2012
MPhil in Comparative Literature
Trinity College Dublin
2009
M.A. in English and Latin
University of St Andrews
- Irish Network for Gothic Studies
In late-Victorian popular fiction, science is often represented in an unorthodox way, for example in the figure of mad scientists, such as Dr Jekyll. At the same time, there was a strong belief in the power of science as a tool for progress. The so-called scientific naturalists were strong and successful advocates of the objectivity and truthfulness of scientific work and represented scientists as virtuous model citizens. LAURA HABBE has examined the disparity between their representation of science and its depiction in examples of popular fiction. In this video she explains two strategies she identified and which these texts employ to subvert the authority of the scientific naturalists. Her study of late-Victorian popular culture suggests that appropriate science communication and the public understanding of science have always been crucial elements of successful scientific research.
LT Video Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.21036/LTPUB10465
Unorthodox Science: Late-Victorian Popular Fiction and its Subversion of Scientific Naturalism
- Laura Habbe
- PhD diss.
- Published in 2017
