Abigail Fields

My work is primarily interested in French environmental thought in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Specifically, I am interested in the appropriation of scientific and pseudoscientific methodologies, concepts, and findings in the French literary canon. I want to know how science was read by authors and by the general public (that is, those non-initiated in scientific discourse) during these time periods. From these examinations, I hope to derive a larger understanding of environmental ethics put forth by texts, and to trace movements in environmental thoughts across these two centuries. My approach melds literary criticism (specifically close reading) and history of science and medicine.

Department: French