Cognitive Literary Science: Dialogues between Literature and Cognition

by Michael Burke (Editor), Emily T. Troscianko (Editor)

Overview

This book brings together researchers with cognitive-scientific and literary backgrounds to present innovative research in all three variations on the possible interactions between literary studies and cognitive science. The tripartite structure of the volume reflects a more ambitious conception of what cognitive approaches to literature are and could be than is usually encountered, and thus aims both to map out and to advance the field. The first section corresponds to what most people think of as "cognitive poetics" or "cognitive literary studies": the study of literature by literary scholars drawing on cognitive-scientific methods, findings, and/or debates to yield insights into literature. The second section demonstrates that literary scholars needn't only make use of cognitive science to study literature, but can also, in a reciprocally interdisciplinary manner, use a cognitively informed perspective on literature to offer benefits back to the cognitive sciences. Finally, the third section, "literature in cognitive science", showcases some of the ways in which literature can be a stimulating object of study and a fertile testing ground for theories and models, not only to literary scholars but also to cognitive scientists, who here engage with some key questions in cognitive literary studies with the benefit of their in-depth scientific knowledge and training.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190643072
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	12/01/2016
Series:	Cognition and Poetics
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Michael Burke is Professor of Rhetoric at University College Roosevelt (Utrecht University). He is the author of Literary Reading Cognition and Emotion: An Exploration of the Oceanic Mind (2011). He has published numerous chapters and articles on the topic of cognitive literary science. His areas of interest also include classical rhetoric, stylistics, and pragmatics. Emily T. Troscianko is a Research Associate in the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages at the University of Oxford, and in 2014-15 was a Knowledge Exchange Fellow at the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities, collaborating with Beat, the leading UK eating disorders charity. The book from her doctoral thesis, Kafka's cognitive realism, came out with Routledge in 2014, and she is now working at the intersection of the cognitive and medical humanities, while co-authoring, with Susan Blackmore, the third edition of the psychology textbook Consciousness: An Introduction.

Table of Contents

Introduction: A Window on to the Landscape of Cognitive Literary Science Emily T. Troscianko and Michael Burke SECTION I: LITERATURE THROUGH A COGNITIVE LENS Chapter 1: Scientific Concepts in Literary Studies: Towards Criteria for the Meeting of Literature and Cognitive Science Marcus Hartner Chapter 2: Towards a 'Natural' Bond of Cognitive and Affective Narratology Caroline Pirlet and Andreas Wirag Chapter 3: 'Annihilation of Self': The Cognitive Challenge of the Sublime David Miall Chapter 4: The Space between Your Ears: Construal Level Theory, Cognitive Science, and Science Fiction James Carney Chapter 5: Patterns of Thought: Narrative and Verse Brian Boyd SECTION II: COGNITION THROUGH A LITERARY LENS Chapter 6: Simulation and the Structure of Emotional Memory: Learning from Arthur Miller's After the Fall. Patrick Colm Hogan Chapter 7: Cognitive Science and the Double Vision of Fiction Merja Polvinen Chapter 8: Fantastic Cognition Karin Kukkonen Chapter 9: Feedback in Reading and Disordered Eating Emily T. Troscianko Chapter 10: Animal Minds across Discourse Domains David Herman SECTION III: LITERATURE AND COGNITION IN COGNITIVE SCIENCE Chapter 11: Embodied Dynamics in Literary Experience Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr. Chapter 12: How Readers' Lives Affect Narrative Experiences Richard J. Gerrig and Micah L. Mumper Chapter 13: On Truth and Fiction Keith Oatley Chapter 14: Under Pressure: Norms, Rules, and Coercion in Linguistic Analyses and Literary Readings Alexander Bergs Chapter 15: Affective and Aesthetic Processes in Literary Reading: A Neurocognitive Poetics Perspective Arthur M. Jacobs

Editorial Reviews

"Cognitive literary science is a tremendously exciting new endeavor. For cognitive scientists it presents fantastically rich set of phenomena to explain, and stringent tests of the explanatory reach of their theories. For literary scholars it offers a cornucopia of new ideas about the expressive power of language and the nature of memory, consciousness, mind-reading, narrative, and conflict. For these and other fields, it promises intellectual excitement, a progressive agenda, and an appeal to a new generation of young scholars. This volume represents much of the best work in this new frontier, and could mark a turning point in our understanding of the relationship of literature to human nature." —Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and the author of The Language Instinct , How the Mind Works, and The Sense of Style

"Scholars working in this field will find in this volume a productive framework for a transdisciplinary approach to any aspect of the mind."—Nick Lavery, British Society for Literature and Science

From the Publisher