Bringing the past to heel: History, identity and violence in Ian McEwan's Black Dogs

Ian McEwan's 1992 novel Black Dogs employs postmodern understandings of history while also critiquing these same perspectives. In particular, by depicting the efforts of its protagonist, Jeremy, to write a memoir of his parents-in-law, it draws attention to the subjectivity of historical writing. While this quality has led some critics to condemn the novel for its escapism and amorality, the authors of the essay argue that Black Dogs is a statement about the necessity of history rather than its futility. Indeed, they read the text as a dramatization of humanity-s ability to bear rather than escape the often troubling burden of the past and an endorsement of the writing of history despite the awareness that historiography, while serving deep-seated human needs, is always problematic

How is culture biological? Violence: real and imagined

Our article addresses the question “How is culture biological?” by considering violence. Historians of violence have focused on issues such as foresight, self-control, sympathy and inequality without sufficiently considering the psychological underpinnings of the social and cultural factors they emphasise. At the same time, an approach to the issue of violence that takes into account evolutionary and biological perspectives also draws attention to the connection between real and imagined violence. We argue that scholars from different disciplines in the humanities have much to gain from a greater engagement with biological and evolutionary approaches to human behaviour and thought