What is life? Is it just the biologically familiar--birds, trees, snails, people--or is it an infinitely complex set of patterns that a computer could simulate? What role does intelligence play in separating the organic from the inorganic, the living from the inert? Does life evolve along a predestined path, or does it suddenly emerge from what appeared lifeless and programmatic?

In this easily accessible and wide-ranging survey, Claus Emmeche outlines many of the challenges and controversies involved in the dynamic and curious science of artificial life. Emmeche describes the...

Knowledge production in academia today is burgeoning and increasingly interdisciplinary in nature. Research within the humanities is no exception: it is distributed across a variety of methodic styles of research and increasingly involves interactions with fields outside the narrow confines of the university. As a result, the notion of liberal arts and humanities within Western universities is undergoing profound transformations. In Mapping Frontier Research in the Humanities, the contributors explore this transformative process. What are the implications, both for the modes of...