Overview
In Wild Experiment, Donovan O. Schaefer challenges the conventional wisdom that feeling and thinking are separate. Drawing on science studies, philosophy, affect theory, secularism studies, psychology, and contemporary literary criticism, Schaefer reconceptualizes rationality as defined by affective processes at every level. He introduces the model of ""cogency theory"" to reconsider the relationship between evolutionary biology and secularism, examining mid-nineteenth-century Darwinian controversies, the 1925 Scopes Trial, and the New Atheist movement of the 2000s. Along the way, Schaefer reappraises a range of related issues, from secular architecture at Oxford to American eugenics to contemporary climate denialism. These case studies locate the intersection of thinking and feeling in the way scientific rationality balances excited discovery with anxious scrutiny, in the fascination of conspiracy theories, and in how racist feelings assume the mantle of rational objectivity. The fact that cognition is felt, Schaefer demonstrates, is both why science succeeds and why it fails. He concludes that science, secularism, atheism, and reason itself are not separate from feeling but comprehensively defined by it.
Full Product Details
Author: Donovan O. Schaefer
Publisher: Duke University Press
Imprint: Duke University Press
Weight: 0.476kg
ISBN: 9781478018254
ISBN 10: 1478018259
Pages: 328
Publication Date: 10 June 2022
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
"""Inaugurate[s] a project of secular theorization that adds a distinctive and needed methodological angle to studies of the secular in North America. . . . A must-read for scholars of American religions. . . ."" -- Valeria Vergani * American Religion * ""Wild Experiment is an indispensable addition to any course syllabus on race, religion, affect theory, and any interdisciplinary topic on the intersections between feeling and thinking."" -- Abdulrahman Bindamnan * Material Religion *"
You know that jolt that arrives when everything clicks, when the pieces suddenly fit? At once heady and visceral, this experience of cogency-when lucidity emerges out of the messy thicket of experiment-is the focus of this book. From Darwinian science to conspiracy thinking to new Atheism to racialized cognition and more, Donovan O. Schaefer offers a lively account of how intellect and affect are thoroughly intertwined. Readers from several disciplines-religious studies, affect theory, critical science studies, and more-will feel themselves 'clicking' with surprise and delight. -- Gregory J. Seigworth, Digital Communication and Cultural Studies, Millersville University
Author Information
Donovan O. Schaefer is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Religious Affects: Animality, Evolution, and Power, also published by Duke University Press, and The Evolution of Affect Theory: The Humanities, the Sciences, and the Study of Power.
