Scientific Visualizations: Bridge-Building between the Sciences and the Humanities via Visual Analogy‘Everything one invents is true’ Gustave Flaubert

Abstract

Text-based reasoning has, naturally, been crucial to intellectual activity; but it does not represent the entire map in cognition and education. With modern students so responsive to visual stimuli, visual analogy provides a fascinating resource in the exploration of fresh learning interfaces between subject areas, galvanising important new modes of creative-critical teaching across the disciplines and carrying the potential to ignite deeply participatory interdisciplinary discussions. The type of analogy emphasised here is termed a ‘scientific Visualization’; it derives from observable phenomena in technology and science, and is put to use, in this paper, chiefly within literary studies. A spectrum analogy for intertextuality is introduced, developed later into a filter analogy providing a particular perspective on translation. Further analogies examine various aspects of textual reception through genetics, crosstalk and chaos theory. Attractive, novel and accessible, these materials open up a range of cross-disciplinary prospects in research and teaching. Offered in a spirit of serious play, the examples presented in the figures establish the basis for a much wider pilot study; the hope is that the approach will eventually be deployed across many fields.

Keywords:

• visual analogy
• Visualization
• Visualisation
• Visualizability
• science
• humanities
• cross-disciplinary
• Bohm

My thanks to the Royal Literary Fund for its generous support, to Howard Cattermole for his thoughtful comments, and to Rob Pope — the Venn mind without whom there would have been far fewer bubbles.

Readers should note that the figures in this work are available to be viewed in colour online at www.ingentaconnect.com/content/maney/isr. The author retains copyright in all the figures presented in this paper.