Jonathan Gottschall

The Storytelling Animal

How Stories Make Us Human
Sprecher: Koscheski, Kris

• MP3-CD

Produktbeschreibung

Humans live in landscapes of make-believe. We spin fantasies. We devour novels, films, and plays. Even sporting events and criminal trials unfold as narratives. Yet the world of story has long remained an undiscovered and unmapped country. It's easy to say that humans are wired for story, but why? In this delightful and original book, Jonathan Gottschall offers the first unified theory of storytelling. He argues that stories help us navigate life's complex social problems--just as flight simulators prepare pilots for difficult situations. Storytelling has evolved, like other behaviors, to ensure our survival. Drawing on the latest research in neuroscience, psychology, and evolutionary biology, Gottschall tells us what it means to be a storytelling animal. Did you know that the more absorbed you are in a story, the more it changes your behavior? That all children act out the same kinds of stories, whether they grow up in a slum or a suburb? That people who read more fiction are more empathetic? Of course, our story instinct has a darker side. It makes us vulnerable to conspiracy theories, advertisements, and narratives about ourselves that are more truthy than true. National myths can also be terribly dangerous: Hitler's ambitions were partly fueled by a story. But as Gottschall shows in this remarkable book, stories can also change the world for the better. Most successful stories are moral--they teach us how to live, whether explicitly or implicitly, and bind us together around common values. We know we are master shapers of story. The Storytelling Animal finally reveals how stories shape us.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Tantor
• Gesamtlaufzeit: 332 Min.
• Erscheinungstermin: 24. September 2012
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9798200073610
• Artikelnr.: 61598922

Autorenporträt

Jonathan Gottschall is the author of The Rape of Troy: Evolution, Violence, and the World of Homer and Literature, Science, and a New Humanities, as well as coeditor of several books, including Graphing Jane Austen and The Literary Animal. His work has been featured widely in the media, including the New York Times magazine, the New York Times, Scientific American Mind, New Scientist, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Nature, Science, BBC Radio and NPR. Jonathan teaches in the English Department at Washington & Jefferson College. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Washington, Pennsylvania.