Literary Analysis and Weak Theories

doi:10.1017/9781108695374.022

16 - Literary Analysis and Weak Theories

from Part II - Applications

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 September 2020

Omri Moses

Edited by

Laurence J. Kirmayer ,

Carol M. Worthman ,

Shinobu Kitayama ,

Robert Lemelson and

Constance A. Cummings

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Laurence J. Kirmayer: Affiliation:
McGill University, Montréal
Carol M. Worthman: Affiliation:
Emory University, Atlanta
Shinobu Kitayama: Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Robert Lemelson: Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
Constance A. Cummings: Affiliation:
The Foundation for Psychocultural Research

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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.

Keywords

cognitive literary criticism predictive processing affordance theory genre narrative structuralism literary ecology William Carlos Williams enactivism

Type: Chapter
Information: Culture, Mind, and Brain
Emerging Concepts, Models, and Applications
, pp. 416 - 425

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108695374.022 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2020

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References

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16 - Literary Analysis and Weak Theories

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