Oakley, C orcid.org/0000-0002-0474-8572 (2018) Sexual rejuvenation and hegemonic masculinity in C.P. Snow’s suppressed novel New Lives for Old (1933). Palgrave Communications, 4 (1). 93.
Abstract
The English physical chemist C.P. Snow is most renowned for his 1959 Rede Lecture The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution in which he lamented the intellectual divide between the sciences and the humanities. His work as a prolific writer of fiction, however, is less well-known, though he wrote seventeen novels over the course of his lifetime. New Lives for Old, published anonymously in 1933 and subsequently suppressed by the author, is the most obscure of these works. The novel’s fictional protagonist Billy Pilgrim, a professor of biophysics at Kings College, London, develops a technique for synthesising a human sex hormone which can prevent the atrophy of the ageing body. The first part of this paper draws on new archival documents to sketch the background to the novel’s publication and suppression. The second part situates the novel in relation to the under-explored subgenre of rejuvenation fiction from the early decades of the twentieth century, emphasising the dynamic exchange of rejuvenation discourses during this period across the medical and cultural spheres. The third and final part draws on the sociological concept of hegemonic masculinity to illuminate the book’s androcentrism and its sexism, tracing the ways in which C.P. Snow mobilises the gendered concept and practice of medical rejuvenation to navigate perceived threats to male privilege and authority.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018, The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/ |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science (Leeds) > School of Philosophy (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 27 Jun 2019 15:00 |
Last Modified: | 27 Jun 2019 15:00 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Palgrave Macmillan |
Identification Number: | 10.1057/s41599-018-0142-4 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:147670 |