![]() ![]() On the one hand, the novel's key characters function as experts (representing expertise in academic research fields such as molecular life sciences, global health policy and cultural studies), giving voice to what Lacan refers to as "university discourse". Specifically, I will use Lacan's "four discourses" to assess the various roles and positions that determine its basic structure. ![]() ![]() To highlight its cultural relevance, I will approach the novel from a Lacanian perspective. It will be argued that Inferno can help us to "assess the present" by pointing out what we find so intriguing and uncanny about virology and its model organism of choice: the potentially lethal virus. This article reads Dan Brown's best-selling novel Inferno (2013) not as a cinematic techno-thriller, but as a "science novel": a literary document that allows us to discern some of the tensions, paradoxes and inner dynamics of virology as a contemporary ("hyper-scientific") biomedical research field. ![]()
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