Evolution and Literature: Continuation
8-weeks | Available (Membership Required)
This course is a continuation of the Spring 2026 session, Evolution and Literature: An Introduction. Enrollment is limited to participants who completed either the Fall 2019 or Spring 2026 sessions, as foundational knowledge of evolutionary science and interdisciplinary approaches to literature will be assumed. We will continue reading Wright's book, The Moral Animal, examining topics such as reciprocal exchange, cooperation and alliances, deception and self-deception. At the same time, we will explore how literary texts illuminate and confront evolved adaptations. Readings will include poetry and fiction by a variety of writers, e.g., Millay, Heaney, Ryan, Maugham, Hurston and Alcott.
Materials: Readings will be assigned from The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life by Robert Wright (Vintage 1994), which participants should already own.
Judith Saunders
Judith Saunders (Professor Emerita, Marist College) has been engaged in interdisciplinary teaching and scholarship for the past three decades, exploring literary texts through the lens of evolutionary biology and psychology. In her published commentary, she has applied evolutionary theory and research to the work of a variety of English and American writers, including Edith Wharton, D.H. Lawrence, Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and others.