World Enough: Evolutionary Aesthetics and Charles Peirce

by Dustin Hellberg

In World Enough, Hellberg seeks a methodological meta-framework for evolutionary aesthetics to delve deeper into literary and artistic works than current criticism possibly can. By examining the limits of current Theory and then exploring the findings of cognitive science, biosemiotics and literary Darwinism, Hellberg seeks to expand the Humanities by extending the breadth of the Human past language and text. As he says, 'Dignity is the moment when homo sapiens becomes human being.' To do this, he uses the philosophy of Charles Peirce, taking readers past Peirce's more familiar semiotic system, in order to outline a how the various types of evolutionary criticism may find traction in literary works. In the past twenty years the Humanities have seen a growing disenchantment with the excesses of Theory, and evolutionary criticism hopes to breathe new life back into the discipline. Hellberg shows a way to save the Humanities -to save the rich range of interpretation it gives and derives from human life- by looking even deeper into our evolutionary heritage as we find it in literary works to better understand ourselves.

396 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2015

About the author

Dustin Hellberg is an assistant professor of literature and teaches creative writing in the Department of English Language and Literature, Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea. He has an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writer's Workshop, and a PhD from EGS, Switzerland. He has a forthcoming poetry book, A Perfect Sphere on a Frictionless Plane (Delere). He is also working on a new novel and collection of short stories, a poetry chapbook & a translation of Cormac McCarthy's early work into Korean. He has many articles out or forthcoming on evolutionary aesthetics and literary theory. He divides his time between Seoul and Iowa City.