Evolution and Literature: An Introduction
8-weeks | Registration opens 2/14/2026 9:00 AM EST
This course will introduce participants to the emerging field of Evolutionary Literary Studies. We will investigate some of the ways in which literature illustrates and confronts principles of evolutionary biology, focusing on topics such as social environment, competition, mate choice, jealousy, infidelity, status, and reciprocal exchange. Prior knowledge of evolutionary biology is welcome but not expected.
Materials: Primary texts (poems and short stories) will be available online or provided as handouts. Readings will also be assigned from The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life by Robert Wright (Vintage 1994), which participants must purchase.
Note: This class is a repeat of a course given under a slightly different title (Literary Darwinism: An Introduction) in the Fall of 2019. Content and readings will be the same.
- Readings will also be assigned from The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life by Robert Wright (Vintage 1994), which participants must purchase.
Judith Saunders
Judith Saunders has been engaged in interdisciplinary evolutionary studies for many years. In addition to undertaking collaborative teaching with colleagues in the biological and social sciences, she has published pedagogical and literary critical materials featuring evolutionary criticism. She has applied evolutionary analysis to works by a variety of authors, including Hawthorne, Millay, Hemingway, Wharton, Fitzgerald, Thoreau, Freeman, Hurston and Whitman.