Abstract

Evolutionary Psychology www.epjournal.net – 2009. 7(1): 48-51 ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Book Review A trumpet with an uncertain (but compelling) sound A review of Jonathan Gottschall, Literature, Science, and a New Humanities. Palgrave McMillan: New York, 2008, 240 pp., US$26.95, ISBN 978-0230609037. Michael Austin, Office of Academic Affairs, Newman University, Wichita, KS 67212, USA. Email: austinm@newmanu.edu . Jonathan Gottschall does not mince words: Literature, Science, and a New Humanities is a manifesto along the lines of Wordsworth’s preface to Lyrical Ballads or the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album. The book is “a call for upheaval; for new theory, method, and ethos; for paradigm shift” (p. xii). This is a big job, and it comes with a substantial burden of proof. Like any revolutionary, Gottschall must first establish the failure of the ancien régime and then move on to demonstrate that his program offers something better. These two objectives frame the two principle divisions of the book. The first section, “On Theory, Method, and Attitude,” lays out the case for change. The case is not a particularly new one; it echoes (and occasionally reprints) many of the claims and observations found in Gottschall’s edited collection The Literary Animal (2005) and repeated in feature articles