Joseph Carroll, in his broad, hopeful panoramic snapshot, reveals a burgeoning field, albeit one ... more Joseph Carroll, in his broad, hopeful panoramic snapshot, reveals a burgeoning field, albeit one at the fringes of the literary establishment. The Literary Darwinists' status as a "robust guerilla band" is not necessarily a bad thing; arguably one galvanizing force within the humanities themselves is their embattlement with respect to mainstream culture. By this logic, literary Darwinists, doubly-embattled, ought to work with redoubled urgency. As for evolutionary psychology itself, though, it has already leached its way thoroughly into mainstream culture and continues to spread like Dennett's "universal acid." It remains to be seen whether Literary Darwinism can ignite the imaginations of scientists and readers, can adequately and compellingly grasp the reasons we are continually drawn to literary experience--to consume written stories, huddle together under their auspices to argue or commiserate, conjure them in secret solitude or in public, get upset and outraged by them (when they threaten religious beliefs, when they're billed as "true" and "exposed" as fictions). Evolutionary psychology has caught on in the mainstream largely thanks to the way it so routinely cuts to the core of certain aspects of human behavior. Take mating--which happens to be the title of my favorite novel, by Norman Rush. Through EP's lenses, parts of the eye-chart come suddenly into sharp relief--the obsessiveness with which we pursue, agonize over and gibber and jabber over relationships; the monstrous, betimes murderous nature of jealousy; the prevailing folk wisdom that men and women hail from different parts of the psychological solar system; the quirks of personal ads; the widespread appeal of and audience for pornography; the persistence of adultery and its temptations; the inescapable relevance of "looks"--in short, a whole slew of phenomena that previously seemed like loosely-linked fodder for a season of Sex in the City come suddenly into crystalline focus. Does peering at literature--at Mating rather than mating--through these lenses yield equally dramatic insights? I'm willing to gamble on a yes, provided that literary Darwinists remain true to their interdisciplinary spirit and enlist the services of neuroscientists, linguists, behavioral ecologists, ethologists, cognitive psychologists, and so forth. I've argued elsewhere ("By Sextants") for the necessity of such collaboration, but here I want to make a case for one indispensable set of invitees to the party--actual writers, such as myself, working in all the major literary modes: fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and drama. I want to go further and argue that if we study exclusively existing texts and ignore artists and the process by which the art comes into being, there will be a gaping hole in the puzzle. The Literary Darwinists have an opportunity, in their attempt to fundamentally alter the way literary study is conducted, to bring artists into the fold, or they may miss this opportunity, I think to the detriment of all concerned. Currently, the relationship of so-called "creative writers" to literary scholars is a strained one, even though there are many who do both or who do one and aspire toward the other (I'm guessing that there are more literary scholars who dream of writing a novel than there are creative writers who fantasize about a definitive reappraisal of literature, though I could be wrong). Creative Writing programs are generally nested within English Departments, and thus fight for the same funding and go to the same faculty meetings and picnics. With the surge in PhD programs in Creative Writing, as well as the number of students writing creative dissertations, there is certainly plenty of overlap. Nevertheless, there is a divide, marred by a mutual wariness and suspicion. Painting with broad brushstrokes, it can be said that writers are suspicious of academic .jargon and conceptual systems that feel unwieldy, at odds with their visceral experience of narrative, and which they believe stifle the creative process. …
Joseph Carroll, in his broad, hopeful panoramic snapshot, reveals a burgeoning field, albeit one ... more Joseph Carroll, in his broad, hopeful panoramic snapshot, reveals a burgeoning field, albeit one at the fringes of the literary establishment. The Literary Darwinists' status as a "robust guerilla band" is not necessarily a bad thing; arguably one galvanizing force within the humanities themselves is their embattlement with respect to mainstream culture. By this logic, literary Darwinists, doubly-embattled, ought to work with redoubled urgency. As for evolutionary psychology itself, though, it has already leached its way thoroughly into mainstream culture and continues to spread like Dennett's "universal acid." It remains to be seen whether Literary Darwinism can ignite the imaginations of scientists and readers, can adequately and compellingly grasp the reasons we are continually drawn to literary experience--to consume written stories, huddle together under their auspices to argue or commiserate, conjure them in secret solitude or in public, get upset and outraged by them (when they threaten religious beliefs, when they're billed as "true" and "exposed" as fictions). Evolutionary psychology has caught on in the mainstream largely thanks to the way it so routinely cuts to the core of certain aspects of human behavior. Take mating--which happens to be the title of my favorite novel, by Norman Rush. Through EP's lenses, parts of the eye-chart come suddenly into sharp relief--the obsessiveness with which we pursue, agonize over and gibber and jabber over relationships; the monstrous, betimes murderous nature of jealousy; the prevailing folk wisdom that men and women hail from different parts of the psychological solar system; the quirks of personal ads; the widespread appeal of and audience for pornography; the persistence of adultery and its temptations; the inescapable relevance of "looks"--in short, a whole slew of phenomena that previously seemed like loosely-linked fodder for a season of Sex in the City come suddenly into crystalline focus. Does peering at literature--at Mating rather than mating--through these lenses yield equally dramatic insights? I'm willing to gamble on a yes, provided that literary Darwinists remain true to their interdisciplinary spirit and enlist the services of neuroscientists, linguists, behavioral ecologists, ethologists, cognitive psychologists, and so forth. I've argued elsewhere ("By Sextants") for the necessity of such collaboration, but here I want to make a case for one indispensable set of invitees to the party--actual writers, such as myself, working in all the major literary modes: fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and drama. I want to go further and argue that if we study exclusively existing texts and ignore artists and the process by which the art comes into being, there will be a gaping hole in the puzzle. The Literary Darwinists have an opportunity, in their attempt to fundamentally alter the way literary study is conducted, to bring artists into the fold, or they may miss this opportunity, I think to the detriment of all concerned. Currently, the relationship of so-called "creative writers" to literary scholars is a strained one, even though there are many who do both or who do one and aspire toward the other (I'm guessing that there are more literary scholars who dream of writing a novel than there are creative writers who fantasize about a definitive reappraisal of literature, though I could be wrong). Creative Writing programs are generally nested within English Departments, and thus fight for the same funding and go to the same faculty meetings and picnics. With the surge in PhD programs in Creative Writing, as well as the number of students writing creative dissertations, there is certainly plenty of overlap. Nevertheless, there is a divide, marred by a mutual wariness and suspicion. Painting with broad brushstrokes, it can be said that writers are suspicious of academic .jargon and conceptual systems that feel unwieldy, at odds with their visceral experience of narrative, and which they believe stifle the creative process. …
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