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After Darwin

After Darwin

After Darwin

Literature, Theory, and Criticism in the Twenty-First Century
Devin Griffiths, University of Southern California
Deanna Kreisel, University of Mississippi
December 2022
This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
Adobe eBook Reader
9781009184892

    Creative storytelling is the beating heart of Darwin's science. All of Darwin's writings drew on information gleaned from a worldwide network of scientific research and correspondence, but they hinge on moments in which Darwin asks his reader to imagine how specific patterns came to be over time, spinning yarns filled with protagonists and antagonists, crises, triumphs, and tragedies. His fictions also forged striking new possibilities for the interpretation of human societies and their relation to natural environments. This volume gathers an international roster of scholars to ask what Darwin's writing offers future of literary scholarship and critical theory, as well as allied fields like history, art history, philosophy, gender studies, disability studies, the history of race, aesthetics, and ethics. It speaks to anyone interested in the impact of Darwin on the humanities, including literary scholars, undergraduate and graduate students, and general readers interested in Darwin's continuing influence.

    • Provides an interdisciplinary lens on the philosophy and writing of Charles Darwin
    • Emphasizes Darwin as a thinker and a humanist, showing readers Darwin's wider-ranging and ongoing impact in various fields of social, philosophical, and aesthetic thought
    • Looks beyond Darwin's theory of natural selection to focus on his contributions to theories of race and gender, aesthetics, ecology, animal studies, environmentalism, and politics

    Product details

    December 2022
    Adobe eBook Reader
    9781009184892
    0 pages
    This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.

    Table of Contents

    • 1. Introduction. After Darwin: Ecology, posthumanism, and aesthetics in the twenty-first century Devin Griffiths and Deanna Kreisel
    • Part I. Environments after Darwin:
    • 2. Darwin after nature: Evolution in an age of extinction Jesse Oak Taylor
    • 3. Darwin and animal studies Caroline Hovanec
    • 4. Darwin's birdsong: Sound studies and Darwinian aesthetics Miranda Butler
    • 5. Darwin and the anthropocene Allen MacDuffie
    • Part II. Differences after Darwin:
    • 6. Disability after Darwin Travis Chi Wing Lau
    • 7. Race after Darwin B. Ricardo Brown
    • 8. Darwin under domestication Kathleen Frederickson
    • 9. Feminism at war: Sexual selection, Darwinism, and fin-de-siècle fiction Carol Colatrella
    • 10. The survival of the unfit Wai Chee Dimock
    • Part III: Humanism after Darwin:
    • 11. Darwin's human history Ian Duncan
    • 12. Conscience after Darwin Patrick Fessenbecker and Nikolaj Nottelmann
    • 13. Darwin, the sublime and the chronology of looking Alexis Harley
    • 14. Instinctive moral actions: Darwin and the ethics of biology Angelique Richardson
    • 15. Darwinian analogies in thinking about art and culture Haun Saussy
    • 16. Afterword George Levine.
      Contributors
    • Devin Griffiths, Deanna Kreisel, Jesse Oak Taylor, Caroline Hovanec, Miranda Butler. Allen MacDuffie, Travis Chi Wing Lau, B. Ricardo Brown, Kathleen Frederickson, Carol Colatrella, Wai Chee Dimock, Ian Duncan, Patrick Fessenbecker, Nikolaj Nottelmann, Alexis Harley, Angelique Richardson, Haun Saussy, George Levine

    • Editors
    • Devin Griffiths , University of Southern California

      Devin Griffiths is an Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature. His book, The Age of Analogy (2016) was a finalist for the BARS, BSLS, and NVSA book prizes. His work has appeared in Critical Inquiry, Victorian Studies, ELH, the History of Humanities, and Book History. He's now working on a study of ecocriticism and the energy humanities.

    • Deanna Kreisel , University of Mississippi

      Deanna Kreisel is Associate Professor of English at the University of Mississippi. She is the author of Economic Woman: Demand, Gender, and Narrative Closure in Eliot and Hardy, and has published articles in PMLA, Representations, ELH, Novel, Victorian Studies, Nineteenth Century Literature, and elsewhere. Her current book project is on utopia and sustainability in Victorian culture.