Curious Minds: The Power of Connection

Perry Zurn,Dani S. Bassett

Curious Minds: The Power of Connection
Format
Hardback
Publisher
MIT Press Ltd
Country
United States
Published
6 September 2022
Pages
304
ISBN
9780262047036

Curious Minds: The Power of Connection

Perry Zurn,Dani S. Bassett

An exhilarating, genre-bending exploration of curiosity’s powerful capacity to connect ideas and people.

Curious about something? Google it. Look at it. Ask a question. But is curiosity simply information seeking? According to this exhilarating, genre-bending book, what’s left out of the conventional understanding of curiosity are the wandering tracks, the weaving concepts, the knitting of ideas, and the thatching of knowledge systems-the networks, the relations between ideas and between people. Curiosity, say Perry Zurn and Dani Bassett, is a practice of connection- it connects ideas into networks of knowledge, and it connects knowers themselves, both to the knowledge they seek and to each other.

Zurn and Bassett-identical twins who write that their book represents the thought of one mind and two bodies -harness their respective expertise in the humanities and the sciences to get irrepressibly curious about curiosity. Traipsing across literatures of antiquity and medieval science, Victorian poetry and nature essays, as well as work by writers from a variety of marginalized communities, they trace a multitudinous curiosity. They identify three styles of curiosity-the busybody, who collects stories, creating loose knowledge networks; the hunter, who hunts down secrets or discoveries, creating tight networks; and the dancer, who takes leaps of creative imagination, creating loopy ones. Investigating what happens in a curious brain, they offer an accessible account of the network neuroscience of curiosity. And they sketch out a new kind of curiosity-centric and inclusive education that embraces everyone’s curiosity. The book performs the very curiosity that it describes, inviting readers to participate-to be curious with the book and not simply about it.

This item is not currently in-stock. It can be ordered online and is expected to ship in 3-5 days

Our stock data is updated periodically, and availability may change throughout the day for in-demand items. Please call the relevant shop for the most current stock information. Prices are subject to change without notice.

Sign in or become a Readings Member to add this title to a wishlist.