11. tautology or testable theory? / Momme von Sydow. Eckart Voigts -- Part 1. The Cultural Evolution of Darwin's Thought. 1. 'I differ widely from you' : Darwin, Galton and the culture of eugenics / Angelique Richardson ; 2. Evolution, heredity and visuality : reading faces with Thomas Hardy / Susanne Scholz ; 3. 'How like us is that ugly brute, the ape!' : Darwin's 'ape theory' and its traces in Victorian children's magazines / Jochen Petzold ; 4. Gender trouble as monkey business : changing roles of simian characters in literature and film between 1870 and 1930 / Julika Griem -- Part 2. Darwin's Cultural Resonance Today. 5. Neo-Victorian Darwin : representations of the nineteenth-century scientist, naturalist and explorer in twenty-first-century women's writing / Ann Heilmann ; 6. (Mis-)representations of Darwin's Origin and evolutionary master narratives in The sea (2005) and The secret scripture (2008) / Felix C.H. Sprang ; 7. Evolution for better or for worse? : science fiction literature and film and the public debate on the future of humanity / Angela Schwarz -- Part 3. Darwin as 'Pop Star' of Contemporary Theory. 8. Displacing humans, reconfiguring Darwin in contemporary culture and theory / Virginia Richter ; 9. Ordering Darwin : evolution and normativity / Nils Wilkinson ; 10. The limits of sociobiology : is there a sociobiological explanation of culture? / Mathias Gutmann ; 11. 'Survival of the fittest' in Darwinian metaphysics : tautology or testable theory? / Momme von Sydow.
Summary:
Taking up the historical evolution of Darwin and his theories and the cultural responses they have inspired, 'Reflecting on Darwin' poses the following questions: "How are the apparatuses in the mid-nineteenth century and at the turn of the twenty-first century interconnected with bio-scientific paradigms in art, literature, culture and science? How are naturalism, determinism and Darwinism - the eugenics of the nineteenth century and the genetic coding of the twentieth century - positioned, embodied and staged in various media configurations and media genres? and "How have particular media apparatuses formed, displaced or stabilized the various concepts of humankind in the framework of evolutionary theory? Ranging from the early circulation of Darwin's ideas to the present, this interdisciplinary collection pays particular attention to Darwin's postmillennial reception.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.