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The Resource America's Darwin : Darwinian Theory and U.S. Culture

America's Darwin : Darwinian Theory and U.S. Culture

Creator
Summary
  • "The 16 essays in this collection explore the distinctive qualities of America's textual engagement with Darwinism--the ways in which Darwinian language and theories have made their way into American Literary and cultural texts, providing writers a new vocabulary to describe human affairs and interactions with other living organisms. The editors argue that attention to the specifics of Darwin's place in the American scene is vital in light of the particularities of the reception and uses of evolutionary theory in the U.S.--i.e. the nation's melting pot identity, its slave past, its particular brands of social Darwinism, and its school of Pragmatist philosophy. In her review of the proposal, Laura Dassow Walls pointed out that one of the most exciting aspects of this project is that the editors and authors are reading a wide range of Darwin's own texts and thereby recovering the Darwin that Americans actually encountered, the more subtle and challenging Darwin who energized modernist American literature, not the Social Darwinist constructed by Herbert Spencer"--
  • "While much has been written about the impact of Darwin's theories on U.S. culture, and countless scholarly collections have been devoted to the science of evolution, few have addressed the specific details of Darwin's theories as a cultural force affecting U.S. writers. America's Darwin fills this gap and features a range of critical approaches that examine U.S. textual responses to Darwin's works.The scholars in this collection represent a range of disciplines--literature, history of science, women's studies, geology, biology, entomology, and anthropology. All pay close attention to the specific forms that Darwinian evolution took in the United States, engaging not only with Darwin's most famous works, such as On the Origin of Species, but also with less familiar works, such as The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Each contributor considers distinctive social, cultural, and intellectual conditions that affected the reception and dissemination of evolutionary thought, from before the publication of On the Origin of Species to the early years of the twenty-first century. These essays engage with the specific details and language of a wide selection of Darwin's texts, treating his writings as primary sources essential to comprehending the impact of Darwinian language on American writers and thinkers. This careful engagement with the texts of evolution enables us to see the broad points of its acceptance and adoption in the American scene; this approach also highlights the ways in which writers, reformers, and others reconfigured Darwinian language to suit their individual purposes. America's Darwin demonstrates the many ways in which writers and others fit themselves to a narrative of evolution whose dominant motifs are contingency and uncertainty. Collectively, the authors make the compelling case that the interpretation of evolutionary theory in the U.S. has always shifted in relation to prevailing cultural anxieties"--
Language
eng
Work
Publication
Extent
1 online resource (1 online resource)
Contents
  • Cover; Contents; Introduction: Textual Responses to Darwinian Theory in the U.S. Scene; PART I: American Spiritual, Aesthetic, and Intellectual Currents; Theorizing Uncertainty: Charles Darwin and William James on Emotion; "The Long Road": John Burroughs and Charles Darwin, 1862-1921; Darwin and the Prairie Origins of American Entomology: Benjamin D. Walsh, Pioneer Visionary; Darwin's Year and Melville's "New Ancient of Days"; Darwinism and the "Stored Beauty" of Culture in Edith Wharton's Writing
  • "A World Which Is Not All In, and Never Will Be": Darwinism, Pragmatist Thinking, and Modernist PoetryPART II: Progress and Degeneration, Crisis and Reform; Sexual Selection and the Economics of Marriage: "Female Choice" in the Writings of Edward Bellamy and Charlotte Perkins Gilman; American Reform Darwinism Meets Russian Mutual Aid: Utopian Feminism in Mary Bradley Lane's Mizora; The Loud Echo of a "Far-Distant Past": Darwin, Norris, and the Clarity of Anger; Criminal Botany: Progress, Degeneration, and Darwin's; PART III: The Limits of Species
  • Bodies, Words, and Works: Charles Darwin and Lewis Henry Morgan on Human-Animal Relations"The Power of Choice": Darwinian Concepts of Animal Mind in Jack London's Dog Stories; T. C. Boyle's Neoevolutionary Queer Ecologies: Questioning Species in "Descent of Man" and "Dogology"; Ape Meets Primatologist: Post-Darwinian Interspecies Romances; Contributors; Index; A; B; C; D; E; F; G; H; I; J; K; L; M; N; O; P; R; S; T; U; V; W
Isbn
9781306827485
Instance
Label
America's Darwin : Darwinian Theory and U.S. Culture
Title
America's Darwin
Title remainder
Darwinian Theory and U.S. Culture
Creator
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
  • "The 16 essays in this collection explore the distinctive qualities of America's textual engagement with Darwinism--the ways in which Darwinian language and theories have made their way into American Literary and cultural texts, providing writers a new vocabulary to describe human affairs and interactions with other living organisms. The editors argue that attention to the specifics of Darwin's place in the American scene is vital in light of the particularities of the reception and uses of evolutionary theory in the U.S.--i.e. the nation's melting pot identity, its slave past, its particular brands of social Darwinism, and its school of Pragmatist philosophy. In her review of the proposal, Laura Dassow Walls pointed out that one of the most exciting aspects of this project is that the editors and authors are reading a wide range of Darwin's own texts and thereby recovering the Darwin that Americans actually encountered, the more subtle and challenging Darwin who energized modernist American literature, not the Social Darwinist constructed by Herbert Spencer"--
  • "While much has been written about the impact of Darwin's theories on U.S. culture, and countless scholarly collections have been devoted to the science of evolution, few have addressed the specific details of Darwin's theories as a cultural force affecting U.S. writers. America's Darwin fills this gap and features a range of critical approaches that examine U.S. textual responses to Darwin's works.The scholars in this collection represent a range of disciplines--literature, history of science, women's studies, geology, biology, entomology, and anthropology. All pay close attention to the specific forms that Darwinian evolution took in the United States, engaging not only with Darwin's most famous works, such as On the Origin of Species, but also with less familiar works, such as The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Each contributor considers distinctive social, cultural, and intellectual conditions that affected the reception and dissemination of evolutionary thought, from before the publication of On the Origin of Species to the early years of the twenty-first century. These essays engage with the specific details and language of a wide selection of Darwin's texts, treating his writings as primary sources essential to comprehending the impact of Darwinian language on American writers and thinkers. This careful engagement with the texts of evolution enables us to see the broad points of its acceptance and adoption in the American scene; this approach also highlights the ways in which writers, reformers, and others reconfigured Darwinian language to suit their individual purposes. America's Darwin demonstrates the many ways in which writers and others fit themselves to a narrative of evolution whose dominant motifs are contingency and uncertainty. Collectively, the authors make the compelling case that the interpretation of evolutionary theory in the U.S. has always shifted in relation to prevailing cultural anxieties"--
Assigning source
  • Provided by publisher
  • Provided by publisher
Cataloging source
IDEBK
http://library.link/vocab/creatorName
Gianquitto, Tina
Dewey number
810.9
Index
no index present
LC call number
PS169.S413
Literary form
non fiction
Nature of contents
dictionaries
http://library.link/vocab/subjectName
  • Darwin, Charles
  • American literature
  • Literature and science
  • Evolution (Biology) in literature
  • Social Darwinism in literature
  • Darwin, Charles
  • SCIENCE / Philosophy & Social Aspects
  • LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General
  • American literature
  • Evolution (Biology) in literature
  • Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.)
  • Literature and science
  • Social Darwinism in literature
  • United States
Label
America's Darwin : Darwinian Theory and U.S. Culture
Instantiates
Publication
Carrier category
online resource
Carrier category code
  • cr
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Contents
  • Cover; Contents; Introduction: Textual Responses to Darwinian Theory in the U.S. Scene; PART I: American Spiritual, Aesthetic, and Intellectual Currents; Theorizing Uncertainty: Charles Darwin and William James on Emotion; "The Long Road": John Burroughs and Charles Darwin, 1862-1921; Darwin and the Prairie Origins of American Entomology: Benjamin D. Walsh, Pioneer Visionary; Darwin's Year and Melville's "New Ancient of Days"; Darwinism and the "Stored Beauty" of Culture in Edith Wharton's Writing
  • "A World Which Is Not All In, and Never Will Be": Darwinism, Pragmatist Thinking, and Modernist PoetryPART II: Progress and Degeneration, Crisis and Reform; Sexual Selection and the Economics of Marriage: "Female Choice" in the Writings of Edward Bellamy and Charlotte Perkins Gilman; American Reform Darwinism Meets Russian Mutual Aid: Utopian Feminism in Mary Bradley Lane's Mizora; The Loud Echo of a "Far-Distant Past": Darwin, Norris, and the Clarity of Anger; Criminal Botany: Progress, Degeneration, and Darwin's; PART III: The Limits of Species
  • Bodies, Words, and Works: Charles Darwin and Lewis Henry Morgan on Human-Animal Relations"The Power of Choice": Darwinian Concepts of Animal Mind in Jack London's Dog Stories; T. C. Boyle's Neoevolutionary Queer Ecologies: Questioning Species in "Descent of Man" and "Dogology"; Ape Meets Primatologist: Post-Darwinian Interspecies Romances; Contributors; Index; A; B; C; D; E; F; G; H; I; J; K; L; M; N; O; P; R; S; T; U; V; W
Control code
881037415
Dimensions
unknown
Extent
1 online resource (1 online resource)
Form of item
online
Isbn
9781306827485
Media category
computer
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • c
http://library.link/vocab/ext/overdrive/overdriveId
613999
Specific material designation
remote
System control number
(OCoLC)881037415
Label
America's Darwin : Darwinian Theory and U.S. Culture
Publication
Carrier category
online resource
Carrier category code
  • cr
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Contents
  • Cover; Contents; Introduction: Textual Responses to Darwinian Theory in the U.S. Scene; PART I: American Spiritual, Aesthetic, and Intellectual Currents; Theorizing Uncertainty: Charles Darwin and William James on Emotion; "The Long Road": John Burroughs and Charles Darwin, 1862-1921; Darwin and the Prairie Origins of American Entomology: Benjamin D. Walsh, Pioneer Visionary; Darwin's Year and Melville's "New Ancient of Days"; Darwinism and the "Stored Beauty" of Culture in Edith Wharton's Writing
  • "A World Which Is Not All In, and Never Will Be": Darwinism, Pragmatist Thinking, and Modernist PoetryPART II: Progress and Degeneration, Crisis and Reform; Sexual Selection and the Economics of Marriage: "Female Choice" in the Writings of Edward Bellamy and Charlotte Perkins Gilman; American Reform Darwinism Meets Russian Mutual Aid: Utopian Feminism in Mary Bradley Lane's Mizora; The Loud Echo of a "Far-Distant Past": Darwin, Norris, and the Clarity of Anger; Criminal Botany: Progress, Degeneration, and Darwin's; PART III: The Limits of Species
  • Bodies, Words, and Works: Charles Darwin and Lewis Henry Morgan on Human-Animal Relations"The Power of Choice": Darwinian Concepts of Animal Mind in Jack London's Dog Stories; T. C. Boyle's Neoevolutionary Queer Ecologies: Questioning Species in "Descent of Man" and "Dogology"; Ape Meets Primatologist: Post-Darwinian Interspecies Romances; Contributors; Index; A; B; C; D; E; F; G; H; I; J; K; L; M; N; O; P; R; S; T; U; V; W
Control code
881037415
Dimensions
unknown
Extent
1 online resource (1 online resource)
Form of item
online
Isbn
9781306827485
Media category
computer
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • c
http://library.link/vocab/ext/overdrive/overdriveId
613999
Specific material designation
remote
System control number
(OCoLC)881037415

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