Getting Inside Your Head: What Cognitive Science Can Tell Us about Popular Culture

by Lisa Zunshine

Overview

Using the psychological concept called theory of mind, Lisa Zunshine explores the appeal of movies, novels, paintings, musicals, and reality television.

Winner of the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title of the Choice ACRL

We live in other people's heads: avidly, reluctantly, consciously, unaware, mistakenly, and inescapably. Our social life is a constant negotiation among what we think we know about each other's thoughts and feelings, what we want each other to think we know, and what we would dearly love to know but don't.

Cognitive scientists have a special term for the evolved cognitive adaptation that makes us attribute mental states to other people through observation of their body language; they call it theory of mind. Getting Inside Your Head uses research in theory of mind to look at movies, musicals, novels, classic Chinese opera, stand-up comedy, mock-documentaries, photography, and reality television. It follows Pride and Prejudice’s Mr. Darcy as he tries to conceal his anger, Tyler Durden as he lectures a stranger at gunpoint in Fight Club, and Ingrid Bergman as she fakes interest in horse races in Notorious.

This engaging book exemplifies the new interdisciplinary field of cognitive cultural studies, demonstrating that collaboration between cognitive science and cultural studies is both exciting and productive.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781421406169
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	09/03/2012
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	8.90(w) x 5.90(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Lisa Zunshine is Bush-Holbrook Professor of English at the University of Kentucky, Lexington. She is the author and editor of ten books, including Strange Concepts and the Stories They Make Possible: Cognition, Culture, Narrative and Introduction to Cognitive Cultural Studies, both also published by Johns Hopkins. Her work has been featured in the New York Times and the Chronicle of Higher Education, and she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2008.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

Preface: Fantasies of Access xi

1 Culture of Greedy Mind Readers 1

2 I Know What You're Thinking, Mr. Darcy! 21

3 Sadistic Benefactors 45

4 Theaters, Hippodromes, and Other Mousetraps 55

5 Movies: The Power of Restraint 79

6 Mockumentaries, Photography, and Stand-Up Comedy: Upping the Agony 103

7 Reality TV: Humiliation in Real Time 117

8 Musicals (Particularly around II PM) 125

9 Painting Feelings 145

10 Painting Mysteries 169

Coda 179

Notes 181

Bibliography 197

Index 211

Editorial Reviews

Zunshine’s book was difficult to stop reading; while she handles all these genres with skill, clearly her strength is in reading literature (as she returns to literary references even in the other chapters). Having an understanding of human evolution and how the brain works makes reading a book such as Zunshine’s more satisfying.
—Gregory F. Tague, ASEBL Journal

Offers readers a good deal of food for thought and exemplifies how illuminating the principles from science can be when applied to other forms of culture. Highly recommended.
—Choice

Drawing widely and judiciously on recent research in neuroscience, Getting Inside Your Head expands [theory of mind] to cover all of human culture, from novels to films, plays, musicals, paintings and reality shows.
—Michael Berube, American Scientist

This is the cutting edge of literary scholarship . . . Presents a rich array of innovative approaches to textual analysis for the researcher wishing to explore the cognitive revolution.
—Cognitive Cultural Studies Review

From the Publisher

Offers readers a good deal of food for thought and exemplifies how illuminating the principles from science can be when applied to other forms of culture. Highly recommended.

Choice

Drawing widely and judiciously on recent research in neuroscience, Getting Inside Your Head expands [theory of mind] to cover all of human culture, from novels to films, plays, musicals, paintings and reality shows.

American Scientist - Michael Berube

This is the cutting edge of literary scholarship . . . Presents a rich array of innovative approaches to textual analysis for the researcher wishing to explore the cognitive revolution.

Cognitive Cultural Studies Review

Zunshine’s book was difficult to stop reading; while she handles all these genres with skill, clearly her strength is in reading literature (as she returns to literary references even in the other chapters). Having an understanding of human evolution and how the brain works makes reading a book such as Zunshine’s more satisfying.

ASEBL Journal - Gregory F. Tague