Abstract
Abstract Narrative fiction that combines mathematical or scientific discourses with a pronounced interest in the topic of reasoning, particularly the mercurial effects of abstraction, unfolds an especially multi-faceted engagement with hegemonic cultures of knowledge. The contrastive analysis of two contemporary works of American fiction illustrates the role that the affordances of aesthetic form thereby play: Ted Chiang’s “Division by Zero”, a short story concerned with mathematical and empathic cultures of knowledge, and Richard Powers’s maximalist novel The Overstory, a climate change novel that challenges plant disparity awareness in Western culture. Powers’s novel can be seen as a critical response to the anthropocentric cultures of knowledge encapsulated in Chiang’s short story.
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