Work in Progress: Dana Carluccio, "Literature as Unintentional Science: Vernacular Evolutionary Psychology in Unintentional Passing Narratives""
Work in Progress: Dana Carluccio, "Literature as Unintentional Science: Vernacular Evolutionary Psychology in Unintentional Passing Narratives""
"Intention" is a concept that links 19th-century U.S. literature to evolutionary theory. In the 1880s and 90s, U.S. writers produced what are sometimes called "unintentional passing" narratives--narratives in which a character doesn't know his or her own racial ancestry and thus winds up passing without intending to do so. Intentionality is also an important technical term in the philosophy of science; it refers to a key characteristic of human consciousness, one that evolution is supposed to explain, but that has also been extended to non-human animals. Using intention as the switch point between these discourses, this talk examines how literary history is an inextricable part of the history of the sciences of mind and interrogates the conceptual structure shared by both.
Dana Carluccio is the Associate Director of Honors Humanities. Her research explores how literature can shape the history of science. She has published articles about relations between Harlem Renaissance writers and evolutionary theory in Twentieth Century Literature and about 19th-century evolutionary psychology in Signs. She is working on a book called Cognitive Fictions: Literary History and the Rhetoric of Evolutionary Psychology. Before coming to Maryland, Dr. Carluccio spent two years in Stanford's Introductory Studies program, where she taught courses on science and popular culture, gender studies, and the rhetoric of science. This year at Maryland, she is teaching the second-year Honors Humanities seminar and a course for freshmen on speculative fiction. She also advises student research and directs admissions to the program.
"Intention" is a concept that links 19th-century U.S. literature to evolutionary theory. In the 1880s and 90s, U.S. writers produced what are sometimes called "unintentional passing" narratives--narratives in which a character doesn't know his or her own racial ancestry and thus winds up passing without intending to do so. Intentionality is also an important technical term in the philosophy of science; it refers to a key characteristic of human consciousness, one that evolution is supposed to explain, but that has also been extended to non-human animals. Using intention as the switch point between these discourses, this talk examines how literary history is an inextricable part of the history of the sciences of mind and interrogates the conceptual structure shared by both.
Dana Carluccio is the Associate Director of Honors Humanities. Her research explores how literature can shape the history of science. She has published articles about relations between Harlem Renaissance writers and evolutionary theory in Twentieth Century Literature and about 19th-century evolutionary psychology in Signs. She is working on a book called Cognitive Fictions: Literary History and the Rhetoric of Evolutionary Psychology. Before coming to Maryland, Dr. Carluccio spent two years in Stanford's Introductory Studies program, where she taught courses on science and popular culture, gender studies, and the rhetoric of science. This year at Maryland, she is teaching the second-year Honors Humanities seminar and a course for freshmen on speculative fiction. She also advises student research and directs admissions to the program.
Tawes Hall