Pater acquired a copy of William Carew Hazlitt’s new edition of Montaigne’s Essays published in 1877. This chapter begins by drawing out similarities in the reception of Pater and Montaigne, both of whose writings were assailed for their egotism, scepticism, and sensuality. Such parallels laid the foundations for Pater’s adoption of Montaigne as a proxy for defending his own critical enterprise. Pater’s highly revisionist account of Montaigne hails him not only as a far subtler thinker and moralist than had hitherto been acknowledged in his English reception, but also as a model of aesthetic finesse, demonstrated above all in his engagement with literature. Rather than contesting the charge of self-centredness, Pater defends Montaigne’s incisive interest in his own various and volatile responsiveness as the essential precondition for any criticism worth having. Curious and sociable, the Selfish Reader as represented by Montaigne cherishes the opportunity to view things from different angles and to probe new possibilities for the self, which is never simply given but always at stake in its encounters.

This chapter considers the early modern ‘prehistory’ of the Romantic sublime. It considers the sublime as a type of experience of the natural world that far preceded its formal articulation, taking as examples the volcanic encounters of the Scottish traveller William Lithgow (c. 1582–c. 1645) and the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680). The natural philosopher Thomas Burnet (c. 1635–1715) has often been identified as an originator of the Romantic sublime; this chapter casts him instead as a lynchpin. He was not the first to ‘see’ the great in nature; instead, his theory challenged the theological foundations of many early modern sublime experiences, paving the way for a theory of the sublime that could move beyond the divine. Above all the chapter argues for the value of the vocabulary of sublime experience to describe encounters with the natural world before the Romantic sublime.

Emotions are some of the most discussed aspects of the experience of art, and it has even been argued that emotions are synonymous with art. This chapter will delve into how art simultaneously conveys and evokes emotions, a feature that helps to distinguish the experience of art from experiences in other areas of life. The chapter will also discuss the developments in research methodologies and trends in the scientific study of art that have brought our understanding of art from being based mainly on anecdotal evidence to being empirically-founded. The longstanding issues associated with emotions and art, as well as present state-of-the-art research on the role of emotions in aesthetic experiences, will also be presented. Finally, the chapter will identify some of the questions and challenges for future research in emotions and art.

This chapter explores the impulse to understand reading and criticism in the terms provided by the natural and social sciences, asking both what generates such an impulse and whether it can deliver on what it promises. Such an impulse dates back to the early days of literary studies as an academic discipline, if not longer, but it has returned with a vengeance in the early twenty-first century. The chapter explores two recent instantiations of the impulse: the effort to use Big Data to understand the history of the modern novel, and the hope to understand aesthetic experience in the terms developed by neuroscience. Each of these models presents itself as a radical departure from traditional aesthetic criticism, and promises to break down boundaries between disciplines in ways that would revolutionize how we understand the practice of criticism. Wittgenstein’s writing on language, the mind, and aesthetics, the chapter argues, helps us understand the misplaced assumptions and conceptual weaknesses that pervade these efforts. Instead of giving us the generalizing causal accounts that define the most coherent and rigorous scientific disciplines, criticism and aesthetic understanding arise from a kind of immersive experience, a prolonged encounter with a singular artifact, and one in which empirical studies have no clear explanatory role.

John Blofeld’s The Wheel of Life (1959) and Lama Anagarika Govinda’s The Way of the White Clouds (1966) are interpreted as the first Western Buddhist travel narratives. They integrate spiritual autobiography with the genre of Western travel narratives to Asia, which had previously been tales of adventure and fantastic otherness. Blofeld and Govinda were the first Westerners to depict in detail their own religious experiences in Asia and discuss them in terms of Buddhist ideas. In contrast to most later narratives, Blofeld’s book describes the author’s whole life rather than focusing on a single journey. Lama Govinda’s The Way of the White Clouds focuses on a spectacular and hazardous journey through Western Tibet in 1948. He describes Tibetan practices that precipitate unselfing, such as trekking (long distance walking in mountains), esoteric rituals, events that led him to believe in reincarnation, and aesthetic experiences. Blofeld and Govinda emphasize experiential dimensions of religion rather than beliefs, yet they rely on and defend Buddhist ideas to explain how travel changed them. Their writings show the transformation of Buddhism as it is interpreted by Western adherents.

The European Union has reshaped Irish society over the past half-century, yet in Irish fiction Europe typically appears as a site of aesthetic discovery or historical trauma rather than as immediate political reality. Contemporary Irish writing belongs more to an Anglo-American than to a European literary sphere, and Irish novels in Europe often ponder the ‘Americanization’ of European and Irish modernity. Aidan Higgins’s Balcony of Europe and Deirdre Madden’s Remembering Light and Stone depict Irish expatriates exploring what it means to live between Europe and the United States. In both narratives, the protagonists are romantically involved with Americans and attached to European landscapes, yet neither émigré finds some sustaining new local or supranational sociopolitical form beyond the nation-state.

In this autoethnographic essay, the author – a drummer – describes how he derives meaning from playing the drum kit. He presents accounts of playing drums both alone and in the context of an original rock band. Drawing from existing scholarship on aesthetic experience and meaning in music making, the author argues that while he plays drums often in a state of flow, it may be unhelpful to construe this – as others have done – as music making for its own sake. Rather than positioning his drumming as autotelic or intrinsically worthwhile, the author explains how he plays for the fulfilment derived therefrom, as part of a life lived in search of eudaimonia – flourishing both individually and as part of a community. Drumming in these contexts is, the author argues, a locus of spirituality, understood through the lenses of embodiment, authenticity, and personal agency as a form of success. Playing drums – for this drummer – provides a connection to, and a window into, his soul.

If cognitive neuroscience is meant to investigate what makes us human, cultural artifacts and artistic expressions should be at the top of the list of its explananda. Cognitive neuroscience, in tight cooperation and dialogue with the humanities, can shed new light on several theoretical issues related to aesthetics, traditionally dealt with exclusively within the camp of the humanities. A succinct description of embodied simulation theory in relation to aesthetic experience is proposed, and some accomplishments of this bottom-up approach to the experience of visual art and film are illustrated. The notion of “habit” is introduced, it is connected to its potential underlying neural mechanisms, and to the production and reception of human cultural artifacts. Capitalizing upon pragmatism, Pierre Bourdieu, and practice theory, the relationship between body, habit, practice, and rituals and its bearing on the creation of symbolic objects and cultural artifacts is analyzed from a neuropragmatist approach, which emphasizes the procedural and implicit forms of human cognition. The suggested gradual transition from tool-making to symbol-making grants the following: (a) It shows that utilitarian and symbolic behavior are both chapters of the same cognitive technology trajectory; (b) it does not require one to assume that symbol-making is the late externalization of a previously existing inner symbolic thought, because symbolic thought and symbol-making are the co-constructive outcome of the development of shared performative practices and habits; (c) it is fully compatible with the neurobiological characterization of human relational potentialities as instantiated by embodied simulation. It is proposed that through the repetition, combination, and memorization of particular shared behaviors and actions, and their mimetic ritualization, the social group infuses new cultural meanings into reused bodily performances.

Aesthetic experience is a compelling tool for social change. The arts can serve to create constructive disorientation in ways that probe our innermost values and bring them to the surface. The arts offer paths that are closed to logic and argument, and as such have enormous potential for promoting deep learning. The chapter includes examples from both visual and performing arts to show how, by inviting a vision of how things could be different, one is empowered to imagine how things might be different.

An integration is offered of the book’s previous chapters, shifting from a review of prevailing theories and empirical evidence to a more practical set of recommendations. How might I become a better deep learner? And, how might I encourage deep learning in others? Principles for cultivating a deep learning mindset include: (1) pay attention; (2) confront your biases; (3) engage the tensions; (4) maintain a humble curiosity; (5) see complexity everywhere and don’t let it scare you; (6) learn how to learn with others; (7) harness the power of politics; (8) invite disorientation through aesthetic experience; (9) engage in thought leadership.