The Trickster Brain Neuroscience, Evolution, and Narrative [Paperback]

David Williams tricks the reader into following in his fleet footsteps into the land of neuroscience, evolution, music, and other seemingly non-literary areas in order to flesh out something important about our evolutionary brains, namely our propensity for weaving stories.In The Trickster Brain, David Williams brings together the seemingly incompatible worlds of neuroscience, anthropology and literature with wit and scholarly flair. Williams does not shy away from the more contradictory elements of human nature in this ambitious book, and he leaves the reader with the knowledge that our own brains are tricking us into a better understanding of our most elemental natures.Taken as a whole, The Trickster Brain can be admired for its lofty goal, which is to connect a kind of cross-culturally realized narrative element to the biological design and function of the human brain. Folklorists may also admire Williams willingness to work across disciplinary lines.The Trickster Brain: Neuroscience, Evolution, and Nature by David Williams looks at literature from an evolutionary, biological, and neurological perspective. He uses the Trickster character as he/she appears across cultures to demonstrate how stories reveal universal aspects of the biological mind. Williams brings together science and the humanities, demonstrating a critical way of approaching literature that incorporates scientific thought.Until recently, scientific and literary cultures have existed side-by-side but most often in parallel universes, without connection. The Trickster Brain: Neuroscience, Evolution, and Nature by David Williams addresses the premise that humans are a biological species stemming from the long process of evolution, and that we do exhibit a universal human nature, given to us through our genes. From this perspective, literature is shown to be a product of our biological selves. By exploring central ideas in neuroscience, evolutionary biology, linguistics, music, philosophy, ethics, relS