sexual desires
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What do your dreams mean? Do men and women differ in the nature and intensity of their sexual desires? Can apes learn sign language? Why can't we tickle ourselves? This course tries to answer these questions and many others, providing a comprehensive overview of the scientific study of thought and behavior. It explores topics such as perception, communication, learning, memory, decision-making, religion, persuasion, love, lust, hunger, art...more
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Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner (AMST 246)Professor Wai Chee Dimock continues her discussion of The Sound and the Fury by juxtaposing Quentin's stream-of-consciousness to his brother Benjy's narrative subjectivity. Professor Dimock argues that Faulkner uses stylistic parallels between the two sections to communicate "kinship" and "variation" between the two narrators. In her readings, she focuses on their relationship with the black charac...more
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Chimpanzee males compete for position in a dominance hierarchy; status often depends on support from other members, including females, of the group. High-ranking males have much greater sexual access to females in estrus. Males control females by physical violence and intimidation. Chimpanzees also engage in purposeful raids to kill members of other chimpanzee groups. This inter-group violence can help explain intra-group violence. To fend...more
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Victorian' came in the twentieth century to stand for sexual repression and social convention. Personal life was governed by complex and rigid rules of behaviour. Like other aspects of Victorian culture this began to break down in the fin-de-siécle. Yet recent research, discussed in this lecture, has undermined this rather simplistic picture and begun to explore some of the contradictions and complexities of Victorian attitudes to marri...more
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In the undisputed Pauline epistles, marriage is seen as a way to extirpate sexual desire - neither as a means for procreation nor as the preferred social status. The Pastoral Epistles, written to instruct in the pastoring of churches and appointing of church offices, presents quite un-Pauline attitudes. In the Pastoral Epistles, the church, rather than an ecclesia, becomes a household, a specifically patriarchal structure in which men hold...more
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Adaptive Evolution is driven by natural selection. Natural selection is not "survival of the fittest," but rather "reproduction of the fittest." Evolution can occur at many different speeds based on the strength of the selection driving it. These types of selection can result in directional, stabilizing, and disruptive outcomes. They can be driven by frequency-dependent selection and sexual selection, in addition to more standard types of ...more
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Genomic conflict arises when the interests of various genomic elements, such as chromosomes and cytoplasmic organelles, are not aligned. These conflicts arise in two situations: either when one unit is contained within another, as a mitochondrion is contained within a cell, or when inheritance is asymmetrical. Genomic conflict can thus occur within a cell, within an organism, or between two organisms, such as a mother and developing fetus....more
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Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner (AMST 246)Professor Wai Chee Dimock begins her discussion of The Sound and the Fury by presenting Faulkner's main sources for the novel, including Act V, Scene 5 of Macbeth and theories of mental deficiency elaborated by John Locke and Henry Goddard. Her main focus is on the experimental subjectivity of the novel's first section which is narrated by Benjy Compson, a mentally retarded 33 year old who is compl...more
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How hormones, phermones and bonding chemicals connect with the experiences of sexual arousal and romantic love. To what extent are we victims of our brain chemistry and neural processes? What are the evolutionary origins and adaptive values of "falling in love"?
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This lecture reviews what evolutionary theories and recent studies in psychology can tell us about sex and gender differences. Students will hear how psychology can help explain many of the differences that exist in whom we find attractive, what we desire in a mate, and sexual orientation.
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Such is the gloom that surrounds settling down today and the glamour that attaches to mature bachelor freedom, it is hard to imagine that there was a time when marriage represented the summit of a young man's hopes. Forty years after the sexual liberalization of the 1970s, it is easy to forget that only marriage promised true sexual fulfillment for Christians, turning furtive or frustrated boys into fully-realized men. Marriage was th...more
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We first complete our discussion of the candidate-voter model showing, in particular, that, in equilibrium, two candidates cannot be too far apart. Then we play and analyze Schelling's location game. We discuss how segregation can occur in society even if no one desires it. We also learn that seemingly irrelevant details of a model can matter. We consider randomizations first by a central authority (such as in a bussing policy), and then d...more
