Adaptation in Adaptation in Adaptation in Adaptation

Abstract

This chapter offers a close analysis of Adaptation and its treatment of Darwinian themes. It uses the film to think through some issues in literary and cinematic Darwinism, prompting questions regarding evolution’s use in the humanities: what is the explanatory power of evolutionary biology, and how can we transform evolutionary thinking into meaningfully new information, information that might affect subsequent storytelling or behaviour in the world? Like the film, this chapter is concerned with identifying original thinking—how do we know when we have created something hermeneutically new?