In literature thermodynamics, Allen MacDuffie (c.1975-) is an American literature scholar noted for his 2006 to present work on the overlap and interconnections of thermodynamics concepts in novels.
Overview
In 2006, MacDuffie, in his “Irreversible Thermodynamics: Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Scottish Energy Science”, attempted to argue that Scottish writer Robert Stevenson (1850-1894), a top 30 greatest literary author ever, employed thermodynamics, energy theory, Maxwell’s demon, and or irreversibility in his 1886 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. [1]
MacDuffie’s current project is The City and the Sun: The Rise of Energy Culture in Victorian Britain, an interdisciplinary book examining the evolution of the discourse of energy in Victorian literature, with central chapters on John Ruskin, Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, H.G. Wells, and Joseph Conrad.
Education
MacDuffie completed his BA in English literature at Georgetown University in 1997, and an AM (2001) and PhD (2006) in English literature at Harvard University, the latter with a dissertation on “Entropy and Flowers: the Direction of Energy in Ruskin’s Economy”. [2]
References
1. (a) MacDuffie, Allen. (2006). “Irreversible Thermodynamics: Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Scottish Energy Science” (abs), Representations, 96: 1-20, Fall.
(b) Robert Louis Stevenson – Wikipedia.
2. MacDuffie, Allen. (2006). Entropy and Flowers: the Direction of Energy in Ruskin’s Economy, PhD dissertation. Harvard University.
Further reading
● MacDuffie, Allen. (2011). “Victorian Thermodynamics and the Novel: Problems and Prospects”, Literature Compass, 8(4): 206-13, April.
External links
● Allen MacDuffie (faculty) – University of Texas at Austin.
