“How do Americans spend their leisure time?” That question was posed by Yale psychologist Paul Bloom in his 2010 book How Pleasure Works. The answer, Bloom says, is “participating in […]

In question is nothing less than the nature of literature from an evolutionary perspective. 

Humans are a distractible bunch. We’re easily seduced by ads and offers, memes and tweets. When we’re not focused on useless gimmicks and irrelevant social chatter our minds drift into […]

It’s obvious why we are motivated to eat, drink and reproduce; the origins of our desire to push musical boundaries, on the other hand, are less clear. 

The human brain tends to jump to conclusions based on limited information.

Breakthrough ideas don’t happen overnight. Origins of Species was published in 1859, 28 years after Darwin first boarded HMS Beagle;James Joyce spent seventeen years writing Finnegans Wake;and when Edison filed […]

It’s difficult to categorize Siri Hustvedt. She is, first and foremost, a writer and a thinker. Her well-known novels include What I Loved and The Sorrows Of An American. They […]