This book helps to bridge the gap between science and literary scholarship. Building on findings in the evolutionary human sciences, the authors construct a model of human nature in order to illuminate the evolved psychology that shapes the organization of characters in nineteenth-century British novels, from Jane Austen to E. M. Forster.
The essays in this volume interpret Jane Austen’s fiction through the lens of various sciences of the mind and brain, especially the cluster of disciplines implicated in the term cognitive science, including neuroscience, evolutionary biology, evolutionary and developmental psychology, and others. The field of cognitive literary studies has rapidly developed in the last few decades and achieved the status of an established (if still evolving) critical approach. One of the most popular authors to analyze from this perspective is Jane Austen. As numerous critics have noted, Austen was a keen observer of how the mind operates in its interactions with other minds, both when it functions successfully and when, as often happens, it goes awry, and her perceptions are often in synch with current neuroscientific and psychological research. Despite the widespread recognition of the special congruity between Austen’s novels and cognitive science, however, no book has been devoted to this subject. Jane Austen and Sciences of the Mind is the first monograph wholly comprised of readings of Austen’s oeuvre (juvenilia as well as all six completed novels) from cognitive and related psychological approaches. In addition, the volume operates under the assumption that cognitive and historicist approaches are compatible, and many essays situate Austen within the climate of ideas during her era as well as in relation to current research in the sciences and social sciences. Jane Austen and Sciences of the Mind offers a new lens for understanding and illuminating the concerns, techniques, and enduring appeal of Austen’s novels.
Jane Austen wrote six books that were published at the beginning of the 19th century, all with happy endings. Yet below the courtship novels' sparkling wit and dance scenes flows an undercurrent of suffering. Austen had a deep understanding of the sources and cure for suffering that shares much in common with Buddhism. Though not intentionally writing through the lens of Buddhism, Austen intuitively understood the Buddha's most fundamental teaching of the Four Noble Truths: that life contains suffering, that we can discover the causes of suffering, and that we can stop suffering by following the Eightfold Path described by the Buddha. In this book, Austen fans or those who wish for a deeper understanding of how stories can alleviate suffering will discover a combination of psychology and Buddhism alongside accessible close readings of Austen. This unique approach offers insight into Austen's enduring popularity and lessons we might apply to our own lives to find happiness--just like Austen's heroines.
First published anonymously, as ‘a lady’, Jane Austen is now among the world’s most famous and highly revered authors. The Routledge Companion to Jane Austen provides wide-ranging coverage of Jane Austen’s works, reception, and legacy, with chapters that draw on the latest literary research and theory and represent foundational and authoritative scholarship as well as new approaches to an author whose works provide seemingly endless inspiration for reinterpretation, adaptation, and appropriation. The Companion provides up-to-date work by an international team of established and emerging Austen scholars and includes exciting chapters not just on Austen in her time but on her ongoing afterlife, whether in the academy and the wider world of her fans or in cinema, new media, and the commercial world. Parts within the volume explore Jane Austen in her time and within the literary canon; the literary critical and theoretical study of her novels, unpublished writing, and her correspondence; and the afterlife of her work as exemplified in film, digital humanities, and new media. In addition, the Companion devotes special attention to teaching Jane Austen.
Jane Austen and Altruism identifies a compelling theme, namely, the view that Jane Austen propounds a rigorous, boundary-sensitive model of altruism that counters the human propensity to selfishness and promotes the culture of cooperation. In her days, altruism was commonly known as "benevolence", "charity," or "philanthropy", and these concepts overlap with Auguste Comte’s later definition of altruism as "otherism". This volume argues that Austen’s thinking co-opts the evolutionary idea that altruism is seldom truly pure, egoism cannot be eradicated, and boundless group altruism is not sustainable. However, given that she comes from a naval and clergy family, she witnesses the power of wartime patriotism, the Evangelical revival, the Regency culture of politeness, and the sentimental novels. In her novels, she locates human relationships along an altruism continuum that ranges from enlightened selfishness to pathological altruism. Unconditional love is hard to find, but empathy, kin altruism, reciprocal exchange, and group altruism are key to the formation of self-identity, family, community and the nation state.
The Norton Critical Edition of Pride and Prejudice has been revised to reflect the most current scholarly approaches to Austen’s most widely read novel. The text is that of the 1813 first edition, accompanied by revised and expanded explanatory annotations. This Norton Critical Edition also includes: · Biographical portraits of Austen by members of her family and, new to the Fourth Edition, those by Jon Spence (Becoming Jane Austen) and Paula Byrne (The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things). · Fourteen critical essays, eleven of them new to the Fourth Edition, reflecting the finest current scholarship. Contributors include Janet Todd, Andrew Elfenbein, Felicia Bonaparte, and Tiffany Potter, among others. · “Writers on Austen”—a new section of brief comments by Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf, Henry James, and others. · A Chronology and revised and expanded Selected Bibliography.
Storytelling, a tradition that built human civilization, may soon destroy it Humans are storytelling animals. Stories are what make our societies possible. Countless books celebrate their virtues. But Jonathan Gottschall, an expert on the science of stories, argues that there is a dark side to storytelling we can no longer ignore. Storytelling, the very tradition that built human civilization, may be the thing that destroys it. In The Story Paradox, Gottschall explores how a broad consortium of psychologists, communications specialists, neuroscientists, and literary quants are using the scientific method to study how stories affect our brains. The results challenge the idea that storytelling is an obvious force for good in human life. Yes, storytelling can bind groups together, but it is also the main force dragging people apart. And it’s the best method we’ve ever devised for manipulating each other by circumventing rational thought. Behind all civilization’s greatest ills—environmental destruction, runaway demagogues, warfare—you will always find the same master factor: a mind-disordering story. Gottschall argues that societies succeed or fail depending on how they manage these tensions. And it has only become harder, as new technologies that amplify the effects of disinformation campaigns, conspiracy theories, and fake news make separating fact from fiction nearly impossible. With clarity and conviction, Gottschall reveals why our biggest asset has become our greatest threat, and what, if anything, can be done. It is a call to stop asking, “How we can change the world through stories?” and start asking, “How can we save the world from stories?”
"Handbook on Evolution and Society" brings together original chapters by prominent scholars who have been instrumental in the revival of evolutionary theorizing and research in the social sciences over the last twenty-five years. Previously unpublished essays provide up-to-date, critical surveys of recent research and key debates. The contributors discuss early challenges posed by sociobiology, the rise of evolutionary psychology, the more conflicted response of evolutionary sociology to sociobiology, and evolutionary psychology. Chapters address the application and limitations of Darwinian ideas in the social sciences. Prominent authors come from a variety of disciplines in ecology, biology, primatology, psychology, sociology, and the humanities. The most comprehensive resource available, this vital collection demonstrates to scholars and students the new ways in which evolutionary approaches, ultimately derived from biology, are influencing the diverse social sciences and humanities.