Reporter’s Notebook: Jules Verne, desperado?

Thursday, December 10, 2009 - 05:28 in Earth & Climate

Jules Verne (1828-1905) is often remembered as a 19th-century founder of science fiction, whose enthusiasm for invention fills his books — from the spacecraft in From the Earth to the Moon (1865) to the submarine in 20,000 Leagues under the Sea (1869), and many more.Rosalind Williams, MIT’s Bern Dibner Professor of the History of Science and Technology, suggests we should view Verne in a different light: A writer unhappy with science-driven globalization, whose novels speak to our own ambivalent relationship with technology today.This side of Verne has often been hidden due to the frequent adaptation of his work for kids, noted Williams in a public lecture Tuesday, “Secondary Worlds of Jules Verne,” outlining a research project she is undertaking on 19th-century technology. “For a long time the idea was, ‘Well, Verne just writes children’s books,’” Williams noted. Instead, she asserted, Verne “deserves another look as a writer inventing modernity.” While...

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