Melancholies of Knowledge: Literature in the Age of Science

Offering interdisciplinary criticism and methodology, this book includes essays by scientists, social scientists, and literary critics on the work of the French novelist Michel Rio. Contributors include Stephen Jay Gould, world-renowned biologist and best-selling science writer; James Ritter, editor of the Einstein papers, physicist, and historian of science; Michel Pastoureau, France's celebrated medieval historian; Joaquin Galarza, Mexican anthropologist and discoverer of Aztec pictograms as a writing system ("The Champollion of Aztec letters"); Christian Metz, internationally recognized semiologist and the founder of semiology of cinema; and literary scholars Jean Michel Rabate, James Swenson, and Margery Arent Safir.

Margery Arent Safir is Professor of Comparative Literature, The American University of Paris.