SRoB Blog

Jane Rogers’s eighth novel, The Testament of Jessie Lamb, won the 2011 Arthur C. Clarke Award and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Set in a dystopian near future where pregnancy kills, a teenage girl is pulled into a sinister world of martyrdom. Rogers opened with a reading, demonstrating a story rich in ideas and heart. She captured the language of a girl burgeoning on womanhood, navigating her new reality with an inherent childlike curiosity, and pondering the extinction of humanity. But what was most striking is how close to home this story appears, perhaps a product of a narrative imbued with life’s distractions and trivialities. 

What followed was an hour rich in aphorism and warmth. Rogers enjoys writing about mother-daughter relationships, a notable theme in Lamb. In her previous novels, she has moved between various forms and settings, but this is her first dystopia. These changes seem to be part of her progression as a writer: ‘it’s nice to kick against what you’ve done before’. While she didn’t aspire to pen science fiction, she described herself as ‘absolutely thrilled’ to have this new readership. Her choice of a near future setting – just a few months from the present day – served to defamiliarise her audience from current moral frameworks.

Stefan Collini, a professor of English Literature and Intellectual History at the University of Cambridge, wants to know what universities are for – or at least, the title of his latest book suggests as much. It seemed prudent to assume this was rhetorical, but chair James Loxley, a professor from the University of Edinburgh, informed us Collini would attempt to answer. In the forty-five minute polemic which followed, Collini didn’t answer. Rather he framed the question as ‘open-ended’, offering different ways to approach our views of higher education.

Collini explored the past, present and future, interrogating the linear notion of universities as suppliers of workplace training and economic growth. He scrutinised the complexities affecting public perception, including the increase in modern institutions, the value of entrance requirements, the focus on league tables, the impact of globalisation, and of course, the perils of fees and funding. Though at times engaging and insightful, his tendency towards verbosity was a distraction – ironic given he’s concerned about the language surrounding education.

Epigenetics is an emerging scientific field, shedding light on the interactions between nature and nurture. Hosted by Richard Holloway, Nessa Carey, author of The Epigenetic Revolution partook in discussion with Paul Shiels from Glasgow University, and Steven Yearley, director of the ESRC Genomics Policy & Research Forum. The result was a series of arresting insights on the interplay between life science and society.

Carey offered an accessible breakdown of the concepts involved. Traditionally we’re taught heritable information is passed down from parent to child through eggs and sperm. We also learn the effects of the environment – such as diet, exercise and pathogens – are not passed down. But we may have to relinquish this dogma: epigeneticists posit these environmental effects can be inherited, and there is a growing body of evidence to support this.

Science and literature aren’t that different – both attempt to elucidate the intricacies of ourselves and our universe. This event saw a union of two very different authors, raising questions on the connections between fact and fiction. The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus presents a world where the language of children is toxic. In the absence of a scientific solution, the narrator attempts to make a cure. Charles Fernyhough’s A Box of Birds is narrated by a neuroscientist, questioning the cultural impact of physicalist models of consciousness. 

Both authors read extracts of their works. One page of The Flame Alphabet demonstrated a sophisticated story of a man trying to save his family. The central theme – the mephitic nature of language – echoed through the narrator’s desperate, fruitless attempts at pharmacology. Fernyhough’s piece offered a well-crafted account of a scientist, but I found his narrator a little mawkish. Nevertheless, both stories offered a jumping off point for a varied and entertaining debate on the interplay of science and fiction.