LEADER 04281nam 2200793 a 450 001 9910817808703321 005 20200520144314.0 010 $a1-282-15780-9 010 $a9786612157806 010 $a1-4008-2623-3 024 7 $a10.1515/9781400826230 035 $a(CKB)1000000000788446 035 $a(EBL)457841 035 $a(OCoLC)437266744 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000133467 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11136865 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000133467 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10042119 035 $a(PQKB)10684667 035 $a(SSID)ssj0001135489 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)12503199 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0001135489 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)11096487 035 $a(PQKB)11645798 035 $a(MdBmJHUP)muse36346 035 $a(DE-B1597)446366 035 $a(OCoLC)979834711 035 $a(DE-B1597)9781400826230 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL457841 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10312631 035 $a(CaONFJC)MIL215780 035 $a(PPN)170242161 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC457841 035 $a(EXLCZ)991000000000788446 100 $a20040319d2004 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aur|n|---||||| 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 12$aA cultural history of causality $escience, murder novels, and systems of thought /$fStephen Kern 205 $aCourse Book 210 $aPrinceton $cPrinceton University Press$dc2004 215 $a1 online resource (448 p.) 300 $aDescription based upon print version of record. 311 $a0-691-11523-0 311 $a0-691-12768-9 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. [419]-423) and index. 327 $t Frontmatter -- $tContents -- $tAcknowledgments -- $tIntroduction -- $t1. Ancestry -- $t2. Childhood -- $t3. Language -- $t4. Sexuality -- $t5. Emotion -- $t6. Mind -- $t7. Society -- $t8. Ideas -- $tConclusion -- $tNotes -- $tBibliography -- $tIndex 330 $aThis 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. 606 $aCausation in literature 606 $aMurder in literature 606 $aCausation 606 $aFiction$y19th century$xHistory and criticism 606 $aFiction$y20th century$xHistory and criticism 615 0$aCausation in literature. 615 0$aMurder in literature. 615 0$aCausation. 615 0$aFiction$xHistory and criticism. 615 0$aFiction$xHistory and criticism. 676 $a809/.93384 700 $aKern$b Stephen$032794 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910817808703321 996 $aA cultural history of causality$93942292 997 $aUNINA