Useful Fictions : Evolution, Anxiety, and the Origins of Literature.

By: Austin, MichaelMaterial type: TextTextSeries: Frontiers of NarrativePublisher: Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, 2011Copyright date: ©2010Description: 1 online resource (193 pages)Content type: text Media type: computer Carrier type: online resourceISBN: 9780803232976Subject(s): Evolution in literature | Fiction -- Appreciation | Fiction -- History and criticism -- Theory, etc | Fiction -- Psychological aspects | Literature -- PhilosophyGenre/Form: Electronic books.Additional physical formats: Print version:: Useful Fictions : Evolution, Anxiety, and the Origins of LiteratureDDC classification: 809.3 LOC classification: PN3352.P7 -- A87 2010ebOnline resources: Click to View
Contents:
Intro -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: The Big Question -- 1. Scheherazade's Stories and Pangloss's Nose -- 2. Stories for Thinking -- 3. The Infl uence of Anxiety -- 4. Information Anxiety -- 5. The Problem of Other People -- 6. Sex, Lies, and Phenotypes -- 7. Deceiving Ourselves and Others -- Conclusion: Why "Just the Facts, Ma'am" Doesn't Work -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index.
Summary: "We tell ourselves stories in order to live," Joan Didion observed in The White Album. Why is this? Michael Austin asks, in Useful Fictions. Why, in particular, are human beings, whose very survival depends on obtaining true information, so drawn to fictional narratives? After all, virtually every human culture reveres some form of storytelling. Might there be an evolutionary reason behind our species' need for stories?.
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Intro -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: The Big Question -- 1. Scheherazade's Stories and Pangloss's Nose -- 2. Stories for Thinking -- 3. The Infl uence of Anxiety -- 4. Information Anxiety -- 5. The Problem of Other People -- 6. Sex, Lies, and Phenotypes -- 7. Deceiving Ourselves and Others -- Conclusion: Why "Just the Facts, Ma'am" Doesn't Work -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index.

"We tell ourselves stories in order to live," Joan Didion observed in The White Album. Why is this? Michael Austin asks, in Useful Fictions. Why, in particular, are human beings, whose very survival depends on obtaining true information, so drawn to fictional narratives? After all, virtually every human culture reveres some form of storytelling. Might there be an evolutionary reason behind our species' need for stories?.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2018. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.

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