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A Cultural History of Causality : Science, Murder Novels, and Systems of Thought

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Title: A Cultural History of Causality : Science, Murder Novels, and Systems of Thought
Description: This pioneering work is the first to trace how our understanding of the causes of human behavior has changed radically over the course of European and American cultural history since 1830. Focusing on the act of murder, as documented vividly by more than a hundred novels including Crime and Punishment, An American Tragedy, The Trial, and Lolita, Stephen Kern devotes each chapter of A Cultural History of Causality to examining a specific causal factor or motive for murder--ancestry, childhood, language, sexuality, emotion, mind, society, and ideology. In addition to drawing on particular novels, each chapter considers the sciences (genetics, endocrinology, physiology, neuroscience) and systems of thought (psychoanalysis, linguistics, sociology, forensic psychiatry, and existential philosophy) most germane to each causal factor or motive. Kern identifies five shifts in thinking about causality, shifts toward increasing specificity, multiplicity, complexity, probability, and uncertainty. He argues that the more researchers learned about the causes of human behavior, the more they realized how much more there was to know and how little they knew about what they thought they knew. The book closes by considering the revolutionary impact of quantum theory, which, though it influenced novelists only marginally, shattered the model of causal understanding that had dominated Western thought since the seventeenth century. Others have addressed changing ideas about causality in specific areas, but no one has tackled a broad cultural history of this concept as does Stephen Kern in this engagingly written and lucidly argued book.
Authors: Stephen Kern
Resource Type: eBook.
Subjects: Fiction--19th century--History and criticism, Fiction--20th century--History and criticism, Causation, Causation in literature, Murder in literature
Categories: HISTORY / Historiography, LITERARY CRITICISM / General
Database: eBook Collection (EBSCOhost)
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Header DbId: nlebk
DbLabel: eBook Collection (EBSCOhost)
An: 286669
RelevancyScore: 992
AccessLevel: 6
PubType: eBook
PubTypeId: ebook
PreciseRelevancyScore: 991.891296386719
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  Data: A Cultural History of Causality : Science, Murder Novels, and Systems of Thought
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  Data: This pioneering work is the first to trace how our understanding of the causes of human behavior has changed radically over the course of European and American cultural history since 1830. Focusing on the act of murder, as documented vividly by more than a hundred novels including Crime and Punishment, An American Tragedy, The Trial, and Lolita, Stephen Kern devotes each chapter of A Cultural History of Causality to examining a specific causal factor or motive for murder--ancestry, childhood, language, sexuality, emotion, mind, society, and ideology. In addition to drawing on particular novels, each chapter considers the sciences (genetics, endocrinology, physiology, neuroscience) and systems of thought (psychoanalysis, linguistics, sociology, forensic psychiatry, and existential philosophy) most germane to each causal factor or motive. Kern identifies five shifts in thinking about causality, shifts toward increasing specificity, multiplicity, complexity, probability, and uncertainty. He argues that the more researchers learned about the causes of human behavior, the more they realized how much more there was to know and how little they knew about what they thought they knew. The book closes by considering the revolutionary impact of quantum theory, which, though it influenced novelists only marginally, shattered the model of causal understanding that had dominated Western thought since the seventeenth century. Others have addressed changing ideas about causality in specific areas, but no one has tackled a broad cultural history of this concept as does Stephen Kern in this engagingly written and lucidly argued book.
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RecordInfo BibRecord:
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    Classifications:
      – Code: 809.93384
        Scheme: ddc
        Type: prePub
    Languages:
      – Code: eng
        Text: English
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Fiction--19th century--History and criticism
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Fiction--20th century--History and criticism
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Causation
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Causation in literature
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Murder in literature
        Type: general
    Titles:
      – TitleFull: A Cultural History of Causality : Science, Murder Novels, and Systems of Thought
        Type: main
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      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Stephen Kern
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            NameFull: Stephen Kern
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          Dates:
            – D: 01
              M: 01
              Type: published
              Y: 2004
            – D: 04
              M: 02
              Type: profile
              Y: 2014
          Identifiers:
            – Type: isbn-print
              Value: 9780691127682
            – Type: isbn-print
              Value: 9780691115238
            – Type: isbn-electronic
              Value: 9781400826230
          Titles:
            – TitleFull: A Cultural History of Causality : Science, Murder Novels, and Systems of Thought
              Type: main
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