Brian Boyd explains why we tell stories and how our minds are shaped to understand them.
After considering art as adaptation, Boyd examines Homer's Odyssey and Dr. Seuss's …

? We tell ourselves stories in order to live,? Joan Didion observed in The White Album. Why
is this? Michael Austin asks, in Useful Fictions. Why, in particular, are human beings, whose …

In this fresh and often playful interdisciplinary study, Lisa Zunshine presents a fluid
discussion of how key concepts from cognitive science complicate our cultural …

Although discussing religion, Daniel Dennett could easily have had art in mind when he
wrote:“Any phenomenon that apparently exceeds the functional cries out for an explanation …

This book helps to bridge the gap between science and literary scholarship. Building on
findings in the evolutionary human sciences, the authors construct a model of human nature …

" Of Literature and Knowledge looks... like an important advance in this new and very
important subject... literature is about to become even more interesting."–Edward O. Wilson …

The compelling, groundbreaking guide to creative writing that reveals how the brain
responds to storytelling Stories shape who we are. They drive us to act out our dreams and …

How do minds cause events in the world? How does wanting to write a letter cause a
person's hands to move across the page, or believing something to be true cause a person …

Is human creativity a wall that AI can never scale? Many people are happy to admit that
experts in many domains can be matched by either knowledge-based or sub-symbolic …

Moving effortlessly between symbolist poetry and Barbie dolls, artificial intelligence and
Kleist, Kant, and Winnicott, Barbara Johnson not only clarifies psychological and social …