Request for advice

CRITICAL STUDIES ON THE PORTRAYAL OF SCIENCE IN FICTION

For a number of convergent reasons, I am interested in getting into
the literature on this theme. It is already obvious how various cultural
trends are reflected (even perhaps in part created) by the fictional por-
trayal of scientific and other heroes. In the late thirties, as I can re-
call myself, Sinclair Lewis ARROWSMITH resonated with a kind of folk-hero:
based on the enormous humanitarian accomplishments of Pasteur and Koch. Re-
cently, when I mentioned the book to a class I teach on "Health as human
ecology", only a minority of my students had heard of it. Nor could one
expect to see such a work on today's best-seller lists, except perhaps for
one that focussed on the moral dilemmas of proving a risky, therapeutic in-
novation.

One difficulty in finding the pertinent literature is the confusion with
the encrmous body of writing in and about science fiction of the utopian or
fantasy-oriented variety; nor indeed is there a sharp boundary.

I would be most grateful for references to comprehensive literary-critical
or sociological studies of the portrayal of scientists as characters in fiction
having a quasi-contemporary (as against sf) orientation. Checklists of titles
and themes would also be helpful to me in recalling my own readings of repre-
sentative works of this kind. Mark Schorer depicts ARROWSMITH as the precedent
for the genre (excepting a minor work of H.G.Wells -- The Marriage); and I would
be interested also in comments on this point.

Thank you,

Joshua Lederberg

Dept. Genetics
Stanford University Medical School
Stanford, Ca. 94305