david spooner

The Insect-Populated Mind: how insects have influenced the evolution of consciousness
"In this book author David Spooner proposes a close connection between aspects of insect evolution and the human intellect. By examining seemingly disparate subjects - entomology, language history, genetics, literature and music - Spooner shows how such a synthesis is possible. Once this fusion is achieved, the human species can be seen as connected not just to the great apes, but also via consciousness to metamorphic insects. The book also presents arguments on the roots and nature of the mind in the work of Daniel Dennett and Terrence Deacon."

Thoreau`s Vision of Insects & the origins of American entomology
"contains a great deal of valuable material" (the late Bradley Dean, Thoreau Bulletin)

The Metaphysics of Insect Life
"Your chapter on the 4 and 3 enriches my intuition with exquisite illustrations from the highest reaches of scholarship. All the chapters are quirky with eccentric surprises." (Norman O. Brown)
"Always wide-ranging and effortlessly learned." (Keith Carabine, President, the Conrad Society)

The Poem and the Insect: aspects of twentieth century Hispanic culture
"This book is an extension of Dr. Spooner`s previous work on the interplay of insect processes and human culture. On one level, it is part of cultural-ecological criticism. Assessing the incursion of the South American rainforest ecology into the poetry of Silva and Darío and later Eguren, this study considers its impact on Rueda, Aleixandre, Jiménez, Lorca, Hernández and González, balancing this with a recognition of Spain`s indigenous post-romantic modernism. Then while taking account of the insects in Juan Goytisolo`s novels, Spooner throws more light on the books of Márquez, Cortázar and Fuentes, where the striking of the medieval across the modern is interpreted as related to the metamorphoses of insect, and indeed the process of literary development itself. The book concludes with a consideration of the metaphysical and scientific implications of this analysis."