Evolution in the English Department: The Biocultural Paradigms of Literary Darwinism and Adaptive Rhetoric

Abstract

This article introduces emerging programs of study in the field of English (defined broadly) that operate under an evolutionary paradigm. Emerging from the “crisis of the humanities” that became known to a wider public audience in the late 20th-century, literary Darwinism is examined as an alternative or addition to mainstream post-structuralist theory, to which some attribute blame for the decline of literature's prestige. There are strong and weak forms of literary Darwinism in practice, ranging in approach from a complete paradigm shift to merely adding one more lens through which to read literature, film, and poetry in terms of both biology and culture. Rhetoric and composition scholarship is beginning to show interest in biocultural explanations for persuasive behavior as well. The nascent field of adaptive rhetoric combines the comparative study of human and nonhuman animal rhetorics with insight from evolutionary cognitive psychology, in order to gain further insight into the products of our evolved minds, such as rhetorical acts.