Narrating Evolution

Agency, Narrative Thinking, and the Epistemic Value of Contemporary British and American Novels
Erscheinungsjahr 2017
ISBN: 978-3-86821-697-4
Verlag: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier

Buch, Englisch, Band 2, 346 Seiten, KART, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 225 mm, Gewicht: 635 g

Reihe: Reihe Alternativer Beiträge zur Erzählforschung (RABE)

In the last two decades, evolutionary theorists have displayed great interest in human beings as ‘storytelling animals’, thus calling attention to the cognitive faculty of narrative thinking and its survival values. Narratologists have contributed to ongoing research into narrative cognition, but they have also begun to investigate the stories we construct of evolution itself. The present study analyzes such ‘evolutionary narratives’ as notoriously difficult and conflicted forms of representation. It posits that the way in which narratives conceptualize behaviour as intentional action differs significantly from the rule-based, recursive and emergent agency exhibited by evolutionary systems. Advancing an understanding of science as embedded in culture, it argues that evolutionary narratives are never purely scientific formations but can instead be traced in a wide range of genres and texts, including narrative fiction.

‘Narrating Evolution‘ pursues two main goals. Firstly, it seeks to conceptualize the nexus between evolution and narrative in a bidirectional manner by (a) theorizing the logic of narrative in contradistinction to evolutionary systems and (b) studying evolutionary theory narratologically. Secondly, the study analyzes select contemporary British and US-American novels as ‘epistemological fiction’. Providing close readings of texts by Ian McEwan, Richard Powers, Edward O. Wilson, A.S. Byatt, Michael Crichton and Mark Haddon, it shows how novels can fulfil a range of critical functions – epistemic, meta-cognitive and ethical – in their engagement with evolutionary narratives. The paradigm of neo-Darwinism, in particular, is critically scrutinized in the course of this work, which combines epistemological interest in the ‘narratibility’ of evolution with analyses of fiction and broader cultural discourses.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Scherr, Alexander

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents I. INTRODUCTION: THE PROBLEM OF NARRATING EVOLUTION AND THE EPISTEMIC VALUE OF LITERATURE       1 1. Towards a ‘Non-Consilient’ Approach to the Study of Evolution and            Narrative: Methodological Considerations and Literature Overview       14 2. Aims and Outline of this Study       23 II. NARRATIVIZING EVOLUTION: AGENCY-ORIENTED AND             CULTURAL-NARRATOLOGICAL APPROACHES       29 1. The Human Use of Narrative as a Cognitive Tool: Introducing an             Agency-Based Approach to Narrative       30 2. From ‘Mere Behaviour’ to ‘Intentional Action’: Constructing Agency             through Narrativization, Emplotment and Worldmaking       47 3. The Agency that Never Was: On the Limits of Narrative in Representing             Evolution and Other ‘Unnarratable’ Phenomena of the Living       58 4. Studying Evolutionary Narratives: The Example of Neo-Darwinism       75             4.1 Searching for the Agents of Evolutionary Change:             The ‘Unit of Selection’ Debate and the Construction of the ‘Gene’s Point of View’ in Neo-Darwinist Narratives       78             4.2 Narrativizing Evolution through Adaptive Tales: On the Use of Narrative as a             Heuristic in Neo-Darwinist Theory and the Problem of ‘Just-so Stories’       91 5. On the Cultural Embeddedness of Science: Modelling the Relationship             between Evolutionary, Cultural and Literary Narratives       104             5.1 ‘Positivists’ and ‘Culturalists’: Reconstructing the ‘Two Cultures’ within Evolutionary Theory and Beyond       106             5.2 Theorizing the Ideological Embeddedness of Evolutionary Narratives –             a Cultural-Narratological Approach       115             5.3 Connecting Evolutionary Narratives and Literary Fiction:             The ‘Darwinian-Hobbesian Inter-Discourse’ in Ian McEwan’s Novel Saturday (2005)       120 6. The ‘Evolution/Narrative Nexus’: Summary of the Main Argument       132 III. LAYING BARE THE EPISTEMIC VALUE OF CONTEMPORARY NOVELS:             INTRODUCING IAN MCEWAN’S ENDURING LOVE (1997) AND             RICHARD POWERS’ GENEROSITY: AN ENHANCEMENT (2009) AS             PRIME EXAMPLES OF ‘EPISTEMOLOGICAL FICTION’       135 1. Key Narratological Concepts for the Analysis of Epistemological Fiction       142             1.1 Focalization and Point of View       143             1.2 Metanarration and Metafiction       147             1.3 Narrative Time and ‘Genome Time’       152 2. “Evolution has culled us all into […] efficiency”: Enduring Love’s             ‘Modern’ Darwinist Joe Rose       157 3 Fictionalizing the ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’: Joe’s Neo-Darwinist Narrative             of the ‘Rational Agent’       163 4. ‘Just-so Stories’ Everywhere: Metanarrational Reflections             on the Unreliability of Storytelling       172 5. “[Y]our being right is not a simple matter”: Objections to Joe’s             Neo-Darwinist ‘Truth Discourse’       178 6. When Latour Meets Darwin: Reflections on the Relationship between Knowledge             and Survival in Powers’ Novel Generosity: An Enhancement       183 7. The ‘Epistemic Value’ and the ‘Epistemological Potential’ of McEwan’s and             Powers’ Novels       193 IV. NARRATING EVOLUTION FROM THE ‘ANTS’ POINT OF VIEW’:             EXPLORING THE POTENTIALS AND LIMITS OF SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATION IN             E.O. WILSON’S ANTHILL: A NOVEL (2010) AND OTHER ‘STORIES OF INSECTS’       196 1. Key Concepts: Narrative Embedding and Narrative Framing       202 2. “[T]he dice fell right time and again”: Providing Propositional Knowledge             about Evolution in the Mode of Telling       210 3. Opening up a Bottom-Up View on Life: The Generation of Implicit             Knowledge about Evolution through Formal Strategies       217 4. The Conflicted Agencies of the Anthill: From the Pheromone to the             Superorganism       223 5. “Analogy is a slippery tool”: A Comparison of Anthill and A.S. Byatt’s Novella “Morpho Eugenia” (1992)       230 6. From ‘Epistemic Value’ to ‘Epistemological Critique’ – Comparing the Politics of             Representation in Wilson’s and Byatt’s Literary Narratives       243 V. REFLECTIONS ON AGENCY AND THE LIMITS OF NARRATIVE THINKING             IN MULTIMODAL NOVELS: REPRESENTING ECOSYSTEMS IN             MICHAEL CRICHTON’S JURASSIC PARK (1990) AND MARK HADDON’S             THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME (2003)       247 1. Key Concept: Multimodality       253 2. “Linearity is an artificial way of viewing the world”:             Contesting the ‘Narrative of Centralized Control’ in Michael Crichton’s Novel Jurassic Park       257 3. “Life finds a way”: The Ambiguous Messages of Steven Spielberg’s             Filmic Remediations (1993, 1997) of Crichton’s Novel and the Agency of ‘Life Itself’       272 4. “[O]beying really simple rules”: Reflections on Complexity and the Limits             of Narrative Thinking in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time       280 5. “I find people confusing”: Deducing Evolutionary Functions of Narrative             Thinking and Theory of Mind from the Representation of an Autistic Mind       291 6. Meta-Cognitive Potentials of Multimodality in Foregrounding the Limits             and Values of Narrative Thinking       299 VI. CONCLUSION: RECONSIDERING THE EPISTEMIC VALUE OF CONTEMPORARY             FICTION ENGAGING WITH EVOLUTIONARY THEORY       302 VII. REFERENCES       310 1. Primary Literature       310 2. Works Cited       310