“Why do we read fiction? Why do we care so passionately about nonexistent characters? What underlying mental processes are activated when we read? (…)

Jonathan Gottschall, who has written extensively about using evolutionary theory to explain fiction, said ‘it’s a new moment of hope’ in an era when everyone is talking about ‘the death of the humanities.’ To Mr. Gottschall a scientific approach can rescue literature departments from the malaise that has embraced them over the last decade and a half. Zealous enthusiasm for the politically charged and frequently arcane theories that energized departments in the 1970s, ’80s and early ’90s – Marxism, structuralism, psychoanalysis – has faded. Since then a new generation of scholars have been casting about for The Next Big Thing.

The brain may be it. Getting to the root of people’s fascination with fiction and fantasy, Mr. Gottschall said, is like ‘mapping wonderland.’ (…)

The road between the two cultures – science and literature – can go both ways. ‘Fiction provides a new perspective on what happens in evolution,’ said William Flesch, a professor of English at Brandeis University.

To Mr. Flesch fictional accounts help explain how altruism evolved despite our selfish genes. Fictional heroes are what he calls ‘altruistic punishers,’ people who right wrongs even if they personally have nothing to gain. ‘To give us an incentive to monitor and ensure cooperation, nature endows us with a pleasing sense of outrage’ at cheaters, and delight when they are punished, Mr. Flesch argues. We enjoy fiction because it is teeming with altruistic punishers: Odysseus, Don Quixote, Hamlet, Hercule Poirot.“

Next Big Thing in English: Knowing They Know That You Know, NYT.