Jonathan Gottschall

He completed his PhD in English at State University of New York at Binghamton,{{cite news| last = Max| first = D.T.| title = The Literary Darwinists| newspaper = The New York Times| date = November 6, 2005| url = http://jonathangottschall.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/LitDarwin.htm| url-status = dead| archiveurl = https://archive.today/20130127071130/http://jonathangottschall.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/LitDarwin.htm| archivedate = January 27, 2013}} where he worked under David Sloan Wilson.

Gottschall was profiled by The New York Times{{Cite news | last = Cohen| first = Patricia| title = Next Big Thing in English: Knowing They Know That You Know | newspaper = The New York Times| date = March 31, 2010| url = https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/books/01lit.html| accessdate = 2010-04-26}} and The Chronicle of Higher Education.{{Cite news| last = Peterson| first = Britt| title = Darwin to the Rescue| newspaper = The Chronicle of Higher Education| date = August 1, 2008| url = http://jonathangottschall.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/chronicle-pdf-good-version.pdf| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120425053152/http://jonathangottschall.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/chronicle-pdf-good-version.pdf| url-status = dead| archive-date = April 25, 2012| accessdate = 2010-04-26}} His work was featured in an article in Science describing literature and evolution.{{cite journal| title = Red in Tooth and Claw Among the Literati| journal = Science| date = May 6, 2011| bibcode = 2011Sci...332..654K| url = http://jonathangottschall.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Science-2011-Kean-654-6.pdf| accessdate = 2012-01-31| url-status = dead| archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20120425051034/http://jonathangottschall.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Science-2011-Kean-654-6.pdf| archivedate = April 25, 2012| last1 = Kean| first1 = Sam| volume = 332| issue = 6030| pages = 654–656| doi = 10.1126/science.332.6030.654| pmid = 21551042}}

His work The Rape of Troy: Evolution, Violence and the World of Homer analyzes violence in the Homeric epic poems Iliad and Odyssey through the lens of evolutionary psychology. Gottschall argues that nearly all of the central violent conflicts in the epics originate in conflicts over women. He argues that this reflects an actual shortage of women in ancient Greek society driven by female infanticide and the practice of concentrating enslaved women in the households of powerful men, who were treated as the masters exclusive sexual property.{{Cite journal |last=Barash |first=David P. |date=2008 |title=Book review: The Rape of Troy: Evolution, violence and the world of Homer |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajhb.20831 |journal=American Journal of Human Biology |language=en |volume=20 |issue=6 |pages=742–743 |doi=10.1002/ajhb.20831}}

Literature, Science and a New Humanities advocates that the humanities, and literary studies in particular, need to avail themselves of quantitative and objective methods of inquiry as well as the traditional qualitative and subjective, if they are to produce cumulative, progressive knowledge, and provides a number of case studies that apply quantitative methods to fairy and folk tale around the world to answer questions about human universals and differences.{{cite journal|last1=Easterlin|first1=Nancy|title=Literature, Science, and the New Humanities (review)|journal=Philosophy and Literature|date=April 2009|volume=33|issue=1|pages=230–33|doi=10.1353/phl.0.0035|s2cid=31585802 }}

Gottschall's book, The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human (Houghton Mifflin 2012), is about the evolutionary mystery of storytelling—about the way we shape stories, and stories shape us.{{cite news | title = My Daily Read: Jonathan Gottschall| newspaper = The Chronicle of Higher Education| date = January 25, 2012| url = http://chronicle.com/blogs/pageview/my-daily-read-jonathan-gottschall/29860| accessdate =January 31, 2012 }} A review by The Virginian-Pilot said "Gottschall assesses and accounts for that powerful narrative attraction in a compelling chronicle of his own...and it is a certifiable knee-slap, three-pipe, blue-moon ripsnorter.{{cite news|title=Storytelling is hard-wired into the species|url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-288938890.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140610170819/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-288938890.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=June 10, 2014|newspaper=The Virginian-Pilot|via=HighBeam Research|accessdate=September 17, 2012|date=May 6, 2012}} The Storytelling Animal was a New York Times Editor's Choice selection and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

In the book The Professor in the Cage: Why Men Fight and Why We Like to Watch (Penguin 2015), Gottschall describes the three years he spent at a Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) gym trying to learn how to fight. He uses this experience as a way to explore the evolutionary psychology of violence, masculinity, and sports.

In 2021, Gottschall published The Story Paradox: How Our Love of Storytelling Builds Societies and Tears Them Down. Kirkus Reviews credited Gottschall with providing "fresh insights about the ways we understand reality."{{Cite book |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jonathan-gottschall/the-story-paradox/ |title=THE STORY PARADOX {{!}} Kirkus Reviews |language=en}} The book also received a harshly critical review by Timothy D. Snyder in the New York Times.{{cite news |last1=Snyder |first1=Timothy |title=Is the Human Impulse to Tell Stories Dangerous? |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/30/books/review/the-story-paradox-jonathan-gottschall.html |access-date=30 May 2022 |work=New York Times |date=30 December 2021}} This led to letters to the editor by [https://www.jonathangottschall.com/ Gottschall] and Steven Pinker, whose work was also sharply criticized in the review.{{cite news |title=Letters to the Editor From Steven Pinker, Jonathan Gottschall, and Others |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/14/books/review/letters-to-the-editor.html |access-date=30 May 2022 |work=New York Times |date=14 January 2022}}

• The Literary Animal: Evolution and the Nature of Narrative (2005) – edited with David Sloan Wilson. {{ISBN|978-0810122864}}
• The Rape of Troy: Evolution, Violence and the World of Homer (2008)
• Literature, Science and a New Humanities (2008)
• Evolution, Literature and Film: A Reader (2010) – co-edited with Brian Boyd and Joseph Carroll.
• Graphing Jane Austen: The Evolutionary Basis of Literary Meaning (2012). Co-authored with Joseph Carroll, John A. Johnson, and Daniel Kruger.
• The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make us Human (2012) {{ISBN|978-0547391403}}
• The Professor in the Cage: Why Men Fight and Why We Like to Watch (2015)
• The Story Paradox: How Our Love of Storytelling Builds Societies and Tears Them Down (2021) {{ISBN|978-1541645967}}

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• [http://www.jonathangottschall.com Jonathan Gottschall's Web Page]

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Category:Living people

Category:American literary theorists

Category:Washington & Jefferson College faculty

Category:Binghamton University alumni

Category:1972 births