The Justice

Media Credit: Andrew Rauner At a meet-the-author event in October, Prof. William Flesch talks about his book 'Comeuppance: Costly Signaling, Altruistic Punishment, and Other Biological Components in Fiction.'

Prof. William Flesch (ENG) works in a small, cluttered office, his desk surrounded by bookshelves stuffed so tightly that they might not accomodate even one more sheet of paper. Still, despite the clutter, his office has a homey, inviting feel, and the smell of old books pervades the air. Flesch sits at his desk in sweatpants, sipping a Diet Coke as he pores through works of literature that reflect his eclectic interests in literature, biology, mathematics and philosophy.

The 49-year-old Manhattan native has recently gained national attention for his newest book, Comeuppance: Costly Signaling, Altruistic Punishment, and Other Biological Components in Fiction. The book received rave reviews, and The New Yorker's James Wood named it one of 2008's top 10 books.

Comeuppance is about "using ideas of evolutionary psychology and particularly evolutionary game theory to explain why narratives work," Flesch says.

In the book, Flesch examines the literary theory behind why people become emotionally involved in stories they know are not real. He tries to figure out why readers and moviegoers care about characters they know do not exist.

Flesch came upon literary theory and evolutionary biology through his interest in literature.

"[I] got into evolutionary psychology [because I saw] that a whole lot of the way people were thinking about literature in the last century was influenced by anthropology and in particular by structuralism," he says.

Flesch teaches several English courses, including some that focus on Shakespeare and one about Spenser and Milton.

Flesch says he came to Brandeis because the school is "a place that [has] a wonderful intellectual history and a wonderful intellectual presence." Although he is now an English professor and an acclaimed scholar, Flesch was not always solely devoted to the study of literature. As a student in Riverdale, N.Y. and as a member of Yale University's class of 1978, he planned on majoring in math and English.

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