Evolution, Literature, and Film: A Reader

Evolution, Literature, and Film offers a comprehensive introduction to what has become the most challenging and widely-discussed new approach to understanding literature and film. Featuring thirty-nine essays by pioneering scholars, scientists, and critics, this collection explains how our universal human nature works its way into diverse cultural forms and how this biocultural conception can illuminate many narrative works. Evolution, Literature, and Film opens with an introduction to the principles of evolution, with essays from Charles Darwin on the logic of natural selection; Richard Dawkins on the genetic revolution in modern evolutionary theory; E.O. Wilson on the unity of knowledge; Steven Pinker on evolution’s transformation of psychology into a genuinely explanatory science; and David Sloan Wilson on integrating evolutionary theory within cultural critique. Later sections include essays on the adaptive function of the arts; evolutionary literary theory and film theory; interpretive commentaries on specific works of literature and film; and studies that use empirical methods to explore literary problems. Texts under the microscope include folk and fairytales; Homer’s Iliad; Shakespeare’s plays; works by Wordsworth, Dickens, Bronte, and Hurston; narratives in sci-fi, comics, and slash fiction; and films from Europe, America, Asia, and Africa. Each essay explains how and why evolution contributes to a study of the human mind, human behavior, culture, and art. With an extensive bibliography suggesting further reading, this volume is an ideal core text for the classroom and an invaluable companion for research on evolution and the arts., reviewing a previous edition or volume