Jonathan Gottschall

Jonathan Gottschall is an American literary scholar, the leading younger figure in literature and evolution. He teaches at Washington and Jefferson College in Pennsylvania. He completed graduate work in English at State University of New York at Binghamton, where he worked under David Sloan Wilson.His work The Rape of Troy: Evolution, Violence and the World of Homer describes the Homeric epic poems Iliad and Odyssey in terms of evolutionary psychology, with the central violent conflicts in these works driven by the lack of young women to marry and the resulting evolutionary legacy, as opposed to the violent conflicts being driven by honor or wealth.Literature, Science and a New Humanities advocates that the humanities, and literary studies in particular, need to avail themselves of quantitative and objective methods of inquiry as well as the traditional qualitative and subjective, if they are to produce cumulative, progressive knowledge, and provides a number of case studies that apply quantitative methods to fairy and folk tale around the world to answer questions about human universals and differences.Gottschall was profiled by the New York Times and The Chronicle of Higher Education. His work was featured in an article in Science describing literature and evolution.

Quotes

Ivanahas quoted2 months ago
We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories
Natalia Méndezhas quoted2 years ago
Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories.
Natalia Méndezhas quoted2 years ago
While your body is always fixed at a particular point in space-time, your mind is always free to ramble in lands of make-believe. And it does.
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