Microbial Perspectives: Mark Twain's Imaginative Experiment in Ethics.

Area of Science:

• Literary Studies
• History of Science
• Philosophy

Background:

• Twentieth-century scientific discoveries, particularly in bacteriology, challenged human exceptionalism.
• Literary and philosophical movements like New Materialism and Object-Oriented Ontology explore human-nonhuman relationships.
• Mark Twain's later works engaged with ethical questions raised by nonhuman entities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze Mark Twain's engagement with bacteriology and microbial ethics in his fiction.
• To compare Twain's literary experiments with the scientific work of Herbert W. Conn.
• To explore the practical challenges of inclusive ethical frameworks through Twain's fictional failures.

Main Methods:

• Textual analysis of Mark Twain's later fiction, specifically "Three Thousand Years Among the Microbes."
• Examination of Herbert W. Conn's bacteriological writings.
• Comparative study of scientific and literary approaches to nonhuman ethics.

Main Results:

• Twain adapted Conn's bacteriology to explore ethical structures on nonhuman scales.
• Conn utilized microbes to assert scientific authority.
• Twain's fictional experiment with microbial ethics ultimately failed.

Conclusions:

• Twain's "Three Thousand Years Among the Microbes" dramatizes the difficulties of implementing radically inclusive ethical systems.
• The study highlights the historical roots of contemporary debates in New Materialism and Object-Oriented Ontology.
• Literary fiction can serve as a site for experimenting with complex ethical dilemmas concerning nonhuman entities.