Capuano's CHANGING HANDS Shortlisted for BSLS Book Prize

Assistant professor Peter J. Capuano's book, Changing Hands: Industry, Evolution, and the Reconfiguration of the Victorian Body, has been shortlisted for the 2015 British Society for Literature and Science Book Prize. Capuano is the only assistant professor to make the shortlist.

Inaugurated in 2007, the British Society for Literature and Science book prize is an annual award that considers books on British literature and science from any time period. Changing Hands examines literature and culture of the Victorian Era, focusing on representations of hands (the "distinguishing mark of ... humanity") to expose the scientific, industrial, social, and religious upheavals of the age. "[Changing Hands] is arguably the first full-length critical study of hands that reads them in a literal sense rather than as metonymic stand-ins for various forms of embodied experience," says Kimberly Cox in her review for BSLS. "Capuano’s Changing Hands is a must-read for scholars working on hands or tactility in any period or field of study."

The winner will be announced on April 8, at the annual BSLS conference in Birmingham, England.