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Literature, Science, and a New Humanities

  • Book
  • © 2008

Overview

Authors:
  1. Jonathan Gottschall
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Part of the book series: Cognitive Studies in Literature and Performance (CSLP)

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Table of contents (9 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xvi
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  2. Introduction: Shrinking Possibility Space

    1. Introduction: Shrinking Possibility Space

      • Jonathan Gottschall
      Pages 1-13

  3. On Theory, Method, and Attitude

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 15-15
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    2. On Theory

      • Jonathan Gottschall
      Pages 17-41

    3. On Method

      • Jonathan Gottschall
      Pages 42-65

    4. On Attitude

      • Jonathan Gottschall
      Pages 67-85

  4. Case Studies at the Nexus of Literature and Evolutionary Science

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 87-90
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    2. The Heroine with a Thousand Faces: Universal Trends in the Characterization of Female Folktale Protagonists

      • Jonathan Gottschall
      Pages 91-113

    3. Testing Feminist Fairy Tale Studies

      • Jonathan Gottschall
      Pages 115-126

    4. The “Beauty Myth” is no Myth

      • Jonathan Gottschall
      Pages 127-155

    5. Romantic Love: A Literary Universal?

      • Jonathan Gottschall
      Pages 157-170

    6. Conclusion: FOTA

      • Jonathan Gottschall
      Pages 171-176

  5. Back Matter

    Pages 177-217
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Keywords

About this book

Literary studies are at a tipping point. ." There is broad agreement that the discipline is in "crisis" - that it is aimless, that its intellectual energy is spent, that all of the trends are bad, and that fundamental change will be required to set things right. But there is little agreement on what those changes should be, and no one can predict which way things will ultimately tip. Literature, Science, and a New Humanities represents a bold new response to the crisis in academic literary studies. This book presents a total challenge to dominant paradigms of literary analysis and offers a sweeping critique of those paradigms, and sketches outlines of a new paradigm inspired by scientific theories, methods, and attitudes.

Reviews

"This is an exhilarating book - a call for an intellectual revolution made with brio, unstinting reason, and an exciting proof of concept." - Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor, Harvard University and author of The Language Instinct, The Blank Slate, and The Stuff of Thought

"Gottschall is a major star in the emerging field of literary Darwinism. Literature, Science, and a New Humanities makes a brilliant and passionate case that literary studies needs to adopt the research methods of the natural and social sciences in order to combat the intellectual sclerosis that has set in as theory s grip has weakened. The book is beautifully written, highly intelligent, and morally bracing - it is at once a strong challenge, a how-to manual, a manifesto, and a clarion call to change." - Blakey Vermeule, Associate Professor of English, Stanford University

About the author


JOHNATHAN GOTTSCHALL is English Instructor, Washington and Jefferson College, USA.

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