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  • 16 - Literary Analysis and Weak Theories

  • from Part II - Applications
  • Edited by Laurence J. Kirmayer, McGill University, Montréal, Carol M. Worthman, Emory University, Atlanta, Shinobu Kitayama, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Robert Lemelson, University of California, Los Angeles, Constance A. Cummings
  • Book:
    Culture, Mind, and Brain
    Published online:
    18 September 2020
    Print publication:
    24 September 2020, pp 416-425

  • Summary

    This chapter examines some conceptual problems that arise when we apply new embodied theories of mind in literary analysis. Critics have used affordance theory and models of predictive processing to reflect on narrative and genre, the literary devices and codes that shape our expectations about how a text will unfold. Instead of reinforcing the functionalist assumptions that guide cognitive scientists, including the effort to treat reading literature as just another cognitive task that is directed toward problem solving, this chapter proposes to view it instead as an emotionally engaging or ethically challenging way of reconstructing the ecology in which we think. This approach helps theorists honor the conceptual resources that the 4Es offer by giving more heed to individualized and culturally specific encounters with literary texts. I end by examining a poem that demands that we alter prevailing interpretive practices, thus exposing the way literature reorganizes emotional responses and value schemes.