Evocriticism

Laura Miller at Salon reviews On the Origin of Stories:

"To be fair, Boyd feels compelled to insist on the obvious. That's because "On the Origin of Stories" is at least partly written to refute Theory, the dominant trend in late-20th-century academic literary criticism. Theory is deeply invested in the idea that human identities are entirely "constructed" by the cultures people grow up in, that we are born blank slates with no innate traits. A disciple of such evolutionary psychology evangelists as Steven Pinker and Denis Dutton, Boyd has the enthusiasm of a convert, and he shares his gurus' propensity for overstating their case as well as exaggerating the strength and recalcitrance of the other side. A hardcore constructionist camp does still persist in academia, but it's such a tiny and marginal element in the culture at large, that evolutionary psychologists come across as disingenuous when they insist on portraying themselves as an outnumbered, ragtag band of embattled crusaders.

The truth is that evolutionary psychology has enormous popular cachet; books by Pinker and Robert Wright vastly outsell those of, say, the constructionist gender theorist Judith Butler."

Hmm.