The British Society for Literature and Science

News & Events News, events, videos, podcasts and seminars from the School of Advanced Study (SAS).

Two grant schemes from the School of Advanced Study are now open for applications: Being Human Festival 2026 and the Centre for Public Engagement Practice in Arts and Humanities’ new Collaboration and Innovation Grant. Go to sas.ac.uk/news-events/ for details on how to apply

Call for Contributions to edited collection - The Prosthetic Ocean: Technology, Culture, and Maritime Imagination.

More details here: www.bsls.ac.uk/2026/02/call...

Greedy Science Creating Knowledge, Making Money, and Being Famous in the 1980s

Who would like to review Michael D. Gordin and W. Patrick McGray's, book Greedy Science: Creating Knowledge, Making Money, and Being Famous in the 1980s (www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/...). Contact bslsreviews@gmail.com if so.

They Gather Around Me, the Animals|Paperback Selected by Diane Seuss as winner of the 2024 Barbara Stevens Poetry Book AwardNational Federation of State Poetry SocietiesThe brilliance of Kunjana Parashar's They Gather Around Me, the Animals glea...

Would anyone like to review a poetry collection for the BSLS website: They gather around me, the animals, by Kunjana Parashar (www.barnesandnoble.com/w/they-gathe...). Get in touch at bslsreviews@gmail.com if so.

We have a new review on our website. Raul Martin IV has reviewed Eleanor Keisman's book, New Animal (www.bsls.ac.uk/2026/01/keis...).

CfP Deadline approaching! Friday 30th January for Romantic Elements: Rocks, and Stones, and Soil, 1750–1850. For the full CfP see: www.bsls.ac.uk/2025/11/cfp-...

We have a new review on the BSLS website. Manan Rathod reviews Paul De Kruif's The Drama of Discovery: How Microbe Hunters Shaped Popular Understandings of Microbiology (www.bsls.ac.uk/2026/01/de-k...)

The Tenant in the Mind - markchristhilf.com The Tenant in the Mind Unlike animals, human beings seek the meaning of existence. We want to know why we are here, whether life has a purpose, and if so, what it is. Such questions emanate from consc...

Would anyone like to review The Tenant in the Mind: Consciousness and Its Imperatives by Mark Christhilf (markchristhilf.com/works-on-the...)? Get in touch at bslsreviews@gmail.com if so.

We have a new review on the site, Ananya Roy has reviewed Kate Foster and Molly Crozier (eds), The Human and the Machine in Literature and Culture: Cultures of Automation – The British Society for Literature and Science (www.bsls.ac.uk/2026/01/fost...)

Tita Chico has reviewed Lucinda Cole's, The Fifth Plague: Cattle, Contagion, and the Medical Posthumanities and you can read the review on our website here: www.bsls.ac.uk/2026/01/cole...

We have a new review on our website: Alanna Skuse's, Hurt Feelings: Wounding Oneself in Early Modern Literature, reviewed by Chloe Wilcox (www.bsls.ac.uk/2026/01/skus...)

Winter Newsletter Call for Submissions! See: www.bsls.ac.uk/2026/01/wint...

Women Writing Knowledge: Philosophy in the Early Modern World Online Lecture Series 2026 Cultures of Philosophy, University fo Exeter Thursday 29 January 4 pm UK | 5 pm Italy Natalia Zorrilla Sirlin (McGill University | Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia) Origin Stories of Gender Inequality in early modern Feminist Philosophy Thursday 12 February 4 pm UK | 5 pm Sweden Cecelia Rosenberg (University of Gothenburg) Women as Agents of the Enlightenment in 18th-century Gothenburg Thursday 19 March 4 pm UK | 5 pm Italy Natacha Fabbri (University of Siena | Galileo Museum) Claiming the Heavens: Women, Astronomy, and Intellectual Authority in Seventeenth-Century Europe Thursday 16 April 9 am UK | 6 pm Sydney Dalia Nassar (University of Sydney) Diotima’s Daughters: Women Philosophers on Love, Beauty, Goodness and Truth in the Early Romantic Period Thursday 30 April 4 pm UK & Ireland Derval Conroy (University College Dublin) Constructing a Philosophy of Celibacy: Gabrielle Suchon’s Le Célibat Volontaire ou la Vie Sans Engagement (1700) Thursday 14 May 4.30 pm UK |11.30 am ET Ann Pang-White (University of Scranton) Two Early Modern Women Thinkers of China: Empress Renxiaowen and Madame Liu Thursday 18 June 9 am UK | 5 pm South Korea Hwayeong Wang (Duke Kunshan University) Women Writing Confucian Philosophy in Late Joseon Korea: Im Yunjidang and Gang Jeongildang This work is supported by the European Research Council-selected Starting Grant, ‘Cultures of Philosophy: Women Writing Knowledge in Early Modern Europe’, funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), under the UK government’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee [grant number EP/Y006372/1].

Women Writing Knowledge: Philosophy in the Early Modern World Online Lecture Series

We have published a new book review on our website: Mahroof Mohammad reviews Jasper Joseph-Lester, , Ahuvia Kahane, Simon King, and Esther Leslie (eds), Walking in Cities: Navigating Post-Pandemic Urban Environments (www.bsls.ac.uk/2025/12/jose...).

We have a new book review on our website, Ashitha B. Arun reviews Jeremy Howick's The Power of Placebos (www.bsls.ac.uk/2025/12/howi...).

Would anyone like to review Hurt Feelings: Wounding Oneself in Early Modern Literature by Alanna Skuse (link.springer.com/book/10.1007...)? Get in touch at bslsreviews@gmail.com if so.

CfP Deadline Approaching! The deadline to submit an abstract for this year's BSLS conference is this Friday (12th Dec) more details here: www.bsls.ac.uk/conference20...

Nominations for this year's BSLS Book Prize are now open. Publishers and BSLS Members can nominate any book published in the 2025 calendar year. Nominations are open until 31st December. For more info see our book prize page: www.bsls.ac.uk/prizes/bsls-...

We'd like to review Anton Kirchhofer und Karsten Levihn-Kutzler's Science, Culture, and Postcolonial Narratives (heiup.uni-heidelberg.de/catalog/book...). Can you help? Contact bslsreviews@gmail.com.

Would you like to review Sophie Chiari's Shakespeare’s Ecology of Natural Resources (www.bloomsbury.com/uk/shakespea...)? Please contact bslsreivews@gmail.com.

Race, Genetics, History Cambridge Core - Global History - Race, Genetics, History

Who would like to review Race, Genetics, History
New Practices, New Approaches (www.cambridge.org/core/element...). Get in touch at bslsreviews@gmail.com.

Is anyone keen to review Livia Arndal’s Pregnancy in the Victorian Novel (ohiostatepress.org/books/titles...)? Contact bslsreviews@gmail.com if so.

Confinement ‘An important, fascinating and frequently shocking read.’ BERNARDINE EVARISTO, author of Girl, Woman, Other Covering a fascinating period of population growth, high infant mortality and deep social in...

Would anyone like to review Confinement: The Hidden History of Maternal Bodies in Nineteenth-Century Britain by Jessica Cox? (thehistorypress.co.uk/publication/...). Get in touch at bslsreviews@gmail.com if so.

A new review has been published on the BSLS website: Lucy Davies reviews Silvia Riccardi's Dark Romanticism: Literature, Art, and the Body (www.bsls.ac.uk/2025/11/ricc...)

We have a new review on our website: Lucy Davies reviews Silvia Riccardi's Dark Romanticism: Literature, Art, and the Body.
www.bsls.ac.uk/2025/11/ricc...

Race, Genetics, History Cambridge Core - Global History - Race, Genetics, History

Would anyone like to review Race, Genetics, History:
New Practices, New Approaches (www.cambridge.org/core/element...)? Please contact bslsreviews@gmail.com if so.

The latest edition of the BSLS Newsletter (Autumn 2025) is now available to members on the website: www.bsls.ac.uk/2025/11/autu...

BSHS Online Lecture – Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin and the Dawn of Modern Science by Renee Bergland
More info here: www.bsls.ac.uk/2025/11/bshs...

Hemingway and Posthumanism Hemingway and Posthumanism

Would anyone like to review Hemingway and Posthumanism, edited by Marcos Antonio Norris, Ryan Hediger (edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-hemingw...)? Contact bslsreviews@gmail.com if so.

Sensation Fiction and Modernity This book offers new perspectives on the relationship between the Victorian sensation novel and modernity as one of intellectual and moral discontinuities.

Who would like to review James Green's Sensation Fiction and Modernity: The Meanings of Ambivalence in Mid-Victorian Britain (link.springer.com/book/10.1007...)? Get in touch at bslsreviews@gmail.com if so.