Literature, Science, And A New Humanities

by Gottschall, Jonathan

• ISBN13: 9780230609013
• ISBN10: 0230609015
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-09-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

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.

Author Biography

Johnathan Gottschall is English Instructor, Washington and Jefferson College.

Table of Contents

Shrinking Possibility Space	p. 1
On Theory, Method, and Attitude
On Theory	p. 17
On Method	p. 43
On Attitude	p. 67
Case Studies at the Nexus of Literature and Evolutionary Science
The Heroine with a Thousand Faces: Universal Trends in the Characterization of Female Folktale Protagonists	p. 91
Testing Feminist Fairy Tale Studies	p. 115
The "Beauty Myth" is no Myth	p. 127
Romantic Love: A Literary Universal?	p. 157
Conclusion: FOTA	p. 171
Author's Previous Works	p. 177
Folktale Collections and Cultural Groupings for Chapters 4 and 5	p. 179
Folktale Collections for Chapters 6 and 7	p. 185
Works Cited	p. 191
Index	p. 213
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.