History and Origins
Fiction that incorporates real science into works of fiction that are not science fiction has also been referred to as "science in fiction." Jennifer Rohn coined the term "lab lit" with the launch of the Lablit webzine in 2005. It was relatively rare throughout most of the twentieth century, but began receiving attention in the cultural pages of science magazines during the first decade of the 21st century and has been championed by such scientist novelists such as Carl Djerassi, Ann Lingard and Jennifer Rohn. An upturn in the publication of lab lit novels occurred around 1990, with five to ten new titles appearing annually in more recent years. This is also reflected in a course at Lyman Briggs College, Michigan State University devoted to lab lit, and The New York Times' The Learning Network. The reasons for this increase are unclear, but may include factors such as an increased interest in science on the part of the general public, publishers, and established authors.
Read more about this topic: Lab Lit
Famous quotes containing the words history and, history and/or origins:
“Modern Western thought will pass into history and be incorporated in it, will have its influence and its place, just as our body will pass into the composition of grass, of sheep, of cutlets, and of men. We do not like that kind of immortality, but what is to be done about it?”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)