Thomas VargishCritiques

Overall, not a bad analysis, but really does not completely succeed in making the case for linkages between disciplines, and I blame this mainly on the book's structure. While the chapter topics are appropriate--especially the idea of "epistemic trauma"--it takes for granted that its readers will know of other theories of "cultural matrices" and does not contribute much further towards this idea. Furthermore, all the chapters are divided in the following way: Intro, Relativity Theory, Cubism, Narrative. The "Narrative" sections are weakest, they feel like haphazard guesses at modernist literature that simply include the usual suspects: Woolf, Kafka, James, Mann, Faulkner. Unfortunate, when there's so much more to say! In the end, you get the sense that the authors wrote the book they felt obliged to write rather than the book they wanted to write. Still, a quote or two may bolster some of the arguments in my dissertation, so it's not a total loss.

Overall, not a bad analysis, but really does not completely succeed in making the case for linkages between disciplines, and I blame this mainly on the book's structure. While the chapter topics are appropriate--especially the idea of "epistemic trauma"--it takes for granted that its readers will know of other theories of "cultural matrices" and does not contribute much further towards this idea. Furthermore, all the chapters are divided in the following way: Intro, Relativity Theory, Cubism, Narrative. The "Narrative" sections are weakest, they feel like haphazard guesses at modernist literature that simply include the usual suspects: Woolf, Kafka, James, Mann, Faulkner. Unfortunate, when there's so much more to say! In the end, you get the sense that the authors wrote the book they felt obliged to write rather than the book they wanted to write. Still, a quote or two may bolster some of the arguments in my dissertation, so it's not a total loss.