Steven Brown, Cognitive Neuroscientist, Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University, Canada

Steven Brown is Director of the NeuroArts Lab in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour at McMaster University in Canada. He obtained his Ph.D. in the Department of Genetics and Development at Columbia University in New York, and did postdoctoral research at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, and Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. His research deals with the neural and evolutionary bases of the arts. He is co-editor of two books: The Origins of Music (MIT Press) and Music and Manipulation (Berghahn Books).

"The Unification of the Arts is a major contribution to our understanding of the origin and nature of the arts. Brown's argument is tremendously insightful and tenaciously consistent, though some readers may disagree with some of his core assumptions or assertions, such as a direct adaptive value of the arts, the possibility of group selection, the overwhelming importance of cultural influences, and a downplaying of individual-level competition and achievement in the arts." - Aaron Kozbelt, Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture

"The Unification of the Arts demarcates a valuable perspective on some of the most meaningful and rewarding aspects of human experience, and I am keen to see how it will shape our ongoing understanding of them." - Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture

"The Unification of the Arts is a major contribution to our understanding of the origin and nature of the arts. Brown's argument is tremendously insightful and tenaciously consistent." - Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture