Reading Human Nature: Literary Darwinism in Theory and Practice - Softcover

Carroll, Joseph

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9781438435220: Reading Human Nature: Literary Darwinism in Theory and Practice

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1438435223 ISBN 13: 9781438435220

Publisher: State University of New York Press, 2011

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Showcases the latest developments in literary Darwinism, a powerful approach that integrates evolutionary social science with literary humanism.

As the founder and leading practitioner of “literary Darwinism,” Joseph Carroll remains at the forefront of a major movement in literary studies. Signaling key new developments in this approach, Reading Human Nature contains trenchant theoretical essays, innovative empirical research, sweeping surveys of intellectual history, and sophisticated interpretations of specific literary works, including The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wuthering Heights, The Mayor of Casterbridge, and Hamlet. Evolutionists in the social sciences have succeeded in delineating basic motives but have given far too little attention to the imagination. Carroll makes a compelling case that literary Darwinism is not just another “school” or movement in literary theory. It is the moving force in a fundamental paradigm change in the humanities―a revolution. Psychologists and anthropologists have provided massive evidence that human motives and emotions are rooted in human biology. Since motives and emotions enter into all the products of a human imagination, humanists now urgently need to assimilate a modern scientific understanding of “human nature.” Integrating evolutionary social science with literary humanism, Carroll offers a more complete and adequate understanding of human nature.

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From the Back Cover:

As the founder and leading practitioner of "literary Darwinism," Joseph Carroll remains at the forefront of a major movement in literary studies. Signaling key new developments in this approach, Reading Human Nature contains trenchant theoretical essays, innovative empirical research, sweeping surveys of intellectual history, and sophisticated interpretations of specific literary works, including The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wuthering Heights, The Mayor of Casterbridge, and Hamlet. Carroll makes a compelling case that literary Darwinism is not just another "school" or movement in literary theory. It is the moving force in a fundamental paradigm change in the humanities--a revolution. Evolutionary psychologists and anthropologists have provided massive evidence that motives and emotions are rooted in biology, but they have given far too little attention to the products of the imagination. By integrating evolutionary social science with literary humanism, Carroll offers a more complete and adequate understanding of human nature.

About the Author:

Joseph Carroll is Curators’ Professor of English at the University of Missouri–St. Louis and coeditor (with Alice Andrews) of the journal The Evolutionary Review, also published by SUNY Press. His books include Evolution and Literary Theory and Literary Darwinism: Evolution, Human Nature, and Literature. He has produced an edition of On the Origin of Species. He is coeditor (with Brian Boyd and Jonathan Gottschall) of Evolution, Literature, and Film: A Reader.

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