"A man like Darwin knows much more than he thinks he knows"
Konrad Lorenz in the introduction to
The expression of emotions in man and animals
These seminars will explore the utility of evolutionary theory for
contemporary studies of embodiment, psyche, technology and sexuality. Particular
focus will be given to the writings of Charles Darwin: what Darwin knows,
what he thinks he knows and what we may know through his writing form a
heterogeneous and highly productive nexus. While his work has been largely
neglected (or, indeed, actively rejected) in contemporary critical commentary
in the humanities and social sciences, Darwin’s theories raise a number
of compelling political and scholarly questions under the names speciation,
phylogenesis,
inheritance,
instinct,
emotion,
reflex, and
sex. These seminars will investigate,
via Darwin’s accounts of evolution, the ways in which we are able to denature
the fixity of identity, coassemble the human with the nonhuman (animal,
technological, geological), and defy the parochial enclosure of sexuality
and psyche within ‘culture’.
Week 1: Origins
Bagemihl, B. (1999). Biological exuberance: Animal homosexuality and natural diversity. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Beer, G. (1983). Darwin's plots: Evolutionary narrative in Darwin, George Eliot, and nineteenth-century fiction. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Bergson, H. (1911). Creative evolution. New York: Holt.
Dawkins, R. (1978). The selfish gene. London: Granada.
Dawkins, R. (1986). The blind watchmaker. New York: Norton.
Dennett, D. (1995). Darwin’s dangerous idea. New York: Penguin.
Dyson, G. (1997). Darwin among the machines: The evolution of global intelligence. Reading, MA: Persus.
Edelman, G. (1992). Bright air, brilliant fire: On the matter of mind. New York: Penguin.
Gould, S. J. (1977). Ontogeny and phylogeny. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Grosz, E. (1999). Darwin and feminism: Preliminary investigations for a possible alliance. Australian Feminist Studies, 14 (29), 31—46.
Keller, E. K. & Lloyd, E. A. (1992). Keywords in evolutionary biology. Cambridge, MA: Havard University Press.
Margulis, L. & Sagan, D. (1995). What is life? New York: Simon and Schuster.
Margulis, L. (1998). The symbiotic planet: A new look at evolution. New York: Basic Books.
Margulis, L. et al (1997). Microcosmos: Four billion years of evolution from our microbial ancestors. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Maturana, H. & Varela, F. (1980). Autopoesis and cognition: The realization of the living. Boston: Reidel.
Morgan, E. (1972). The descent of woman. London: Souvenir.
Oyama, S. (1985). The ontogeny of information: Developmental systems and evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Plotkin, H. (1997). Evolution in mind: An introduction to evolutionary psychology. New York: Penguin.
Romanes, G. (1883). Mental evolution in animals. London: Kegan Paul. [With a posthumous essay on instinct by Charles Darwin]
Simondon, G. (1964/1992). The genesis of the individual (trans. M. Cohen & S. Kwinter). In J. Cary and S. Kwinter (Eds.), Incorporations. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Steele, E. J., Lindley, R. A. & Blanden, R. V. (1998). Lamarck’s signature: How retrogenes are changing Darwin’s natural selection paradigm. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.
Tomkins, S. (1962-1992). Affect, imagery, consciousness (vols I—IV). New York: Springer.
Tomkins, S. (1963). Simulation of personality: The interrelationships between affect, thinking, memory, perception, and action. In S. S. Tomkins & S. Messick (Eds.), Computer simulation of personality: frontiers of psychological theory (pp. 3—57). New York: Wiley.
Weismann, A. (1889). Essays upon heredity and kindred biological problems. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Wilson. E. O. (1975). Sociobiology:
The new synthesis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
1842 The structure and distribution of coral reefs
1844 Geological observations on the volcanic islands visited during the voyage of HMS Beagle
1846 Geological observations on South America
1851—4 A monograph on the sub-class cirripedia
1851 A monograph on the fossil lepadidae, or pedunculated cirripedes of Great Britain
1854 A monograph on the fossil balanidae and verrucidae of Great Britain
1859 The origin of species by means of natural selection, or, The preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life
1871 The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex
1872 The expression of the emotions in man and animals
1875 The movement and habits of climbing plants
1875 The variation of animals and plants under domestication
1875 Insectivorous plants
1876 The effects of cross and self fertilisation in the vegetable kingdom
1877 The various contrivances by which orchids are fertilised by insects
1877 The different forms of flowers on plants of the same species
1881 The formation of vegetable
mould, through the action of worms, with observations on their habits
Burkhardt, F. & Smith, S. (Eds.). (1985—). The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Desmond, A. & Moore, J. (1991). Darwin. New York: Penguin.