Can I read Irina Sirotkina, Diagnosing Literary Genius: A Cultural History of Psychiatry in Russia, 1880-1930. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. 269 pp. $45.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-8018-6782-7. on EtoBox?

Irina Sirotkina, Diagnosing Literary Genius: A Cultural History of Psychiatry in Russia, 1880-1930. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. 269 pp. $45.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-8018-6782-7. by David K. Robinson is a scholarly article available to read on EtoBox.

What is Irina Sirotkina, Diagnosing Literary Genius: A Cultural History of Psychiatry in Russia, 1880-1930. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. 269 pp. $45.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-8018-6782-7. about?

One of the most remarkable developments in psychology in the last decade has certainly been the efflorescence of popular evolutionary psychology. From Robert Wright to Matt Ridley, from David Buss to David Barash, the number of books purporting to show that humans possess a genetically based, naturally selected, universally shared "nature" has burgeoned. Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature is only the latest addition to a long line that ultimately reaches back to Darwin's 1871 Descent of Man. The Blank Slate thus contains nothing new: all of the arguments found here repeat arguments that Pinker himself and others have made elsewhere. What is new about his book is its peculiarly petulant and cranky tone-it is essentially one long screed against what Pinker deems the "modern denial of human nature" by a heterogeneous assortment of relativistic doctrines and traditions, including modernist and postmodernist art and literature, social constructionism, science studies, cultural studies, critical theory, and deconstruction. In their relativism, these areas of study have, according to Pinker, not only denied that there is any such thing as a universal human

Author

David K. Robinson

Publisher

John Wiley and Sons; Wiley (John Wiley & Sons); John Wiley & Sons Inc.; Wiley (ISSN 0022-5061)

Published

2003

Language

EN