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How might an understanding of geology, biology or social science help one analyze famous works of literature like "King Lear" or "Pride and Prejudice"?

Joseph Carroll, a founding figure in evolutionary literary study, also known as literary Darwinism, will visit the campus of Eastern Illinois University in Charleston on Thursday, November 20 to answer questions such as this at 6 p. m. in the Doudna Fine Arts Center Lecture Hall.

This lecture titled "The Historical Position of Literary Darwinism" will provide the audience an historical overview of what the movement is and explain his interdisciplinary approach to reading
literature. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Carroll's book "Evolution and Literary Theory," published in 1995, was the first book-length work in the field of evolutionary literary study. His 2004 collection of essays, "Literary Darwinism," gave the field the name by which it is most commonly known. His more recent publications include a second collection of essays, "Reading Human Nature" and a collaborative empirical study, "Graphing Jane Austen: The Evolutionary Basis of Literary Meaning."

Literary Darwinists are animated by a conviction that the human species has evolved in adaptive relation to a physical world, that human bodies and brains contain complex adaptive structures, and that the products of the literary imagination are shaped by biologically grounded motives, passions, and forms of cognition.

Carroll's visit is made possible through the generosity of the Jack and Margaret Redden Fund for the Improvement of Undergraduate Instruction and the EIU Humanities Center. For more information call the EIU Department of English at 217-581-2428 or visit www.eiu.edu/English/.