Empathy and the NovelOxford University Press, 19.04.2007 - 274 Seiten Does empathy felt while reading fiction actually cultivate a sense of connection, leading to altruistic actions on behalf of real others? Empathy and the Novel presents a comprehensive account of the relationships among novel reading, empathy, and altruism. Drawing on psychology, narrative theory, neuroscience, literary history, philosophy, and recent scholarship in discourse processing, Keen brings together resources and challenges for the literary study of empathy and the psychological study of fiction reading. Empathy robustly enters into affective responses to fiction, yet its role in shaping the behavior of emotional readers has been debated for three centuries. Keen surveys these debates and illustrates the techniques that invite empathetic response. She argues that the perception of fictiveness increases the likelihood of readers' empathy in part by releasing them from the guarded responses necessitated by the demands of real others. Narrative empathy is a strategy and subject of contemporary novelists from around the world, writers who tacitly endorse the potential universality of human emotions when they call upon their readers' empathy. If narrative empathy is to be taken seriously, Keen suggests, then women's reading and responses to popular fiction occupy a central position in literary inquiry, and cognitive literary studies should extend its range beyond canonical novels. In short, Keen's study extends the playing field for literature practitioners, causing it to resemble more closely that wide open landscape inhabited by readers. |
Im Buch
Ergebnisse 1-5 von 78
Seite ix
... response to fiction, the loss of which (for large numbers of nonreaders) is indeed to be regretted. Understanding the aesthetic effects of narrative empathy ... Empathetic reading does differ in some important ways from analytical Preface ix.
... response to fiction, the loss of which (for large numbers of nonreaders) is indeed to be regretted. Understanding the aesthetic effects of narrative empathy ... Empathetic reading does differ in some important ways from analytical Preface ix.
Seite xiii
... empathic inaccuracy may contribute to a reader's outraged sense that the author's perspective is simply wrong, while strong concord in authors' empathy and readers' empathy can be a motivating force to move beyond literary response to ...
... empathic inaccuracy may contribute to a reader's outraged sense that the author's perspective is simply wrong, while strong concord in authors' empathy and readers' empathy can be a motivating force to move beyond literary response to ...
Seite xx
... response as compassion to the fates of eighteenth-century fictional characters. Hunt concedes the difficulty of ... empathetic sensations, which can be observed and measured by physical signs, including facial expressions, decreased ...
... response as compassion to the fates of eighteenth-century fictional characters. Hunt concedes the difficulty of ... empathetic sensations, which can be observed and measured by physical signs, including facial expressions, decreased ...
Seite xxii
... empathetic circle. I respectfully observe writers' conviction that novels ... response by disarming suspicion. Chapter 2, “The Literary Career of Empathy ... empathetic response clearly depends upon contexts and genres. I illustrate my ...
... empathetic circle. I respectfully observe writers' conviction that novels ... response by disarming suspicion. Chapter 2, “The Literary Career of Empathy ... empathetic response clearly depends upon contexts and genres. I illustrate my ...
Seite xxiii
... empathetic by narrative theorists or literary cognitivists, I identify the ... empathetic circle. Do empathetic novels sell better in the world fiction market ... response to Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance (1995), the only postcolonial ...
... empathetic by narrative theorists or literary cognitivists, I identify the ... empathetic circle. Do empathetic novels sell better in the world fiction market ... response to Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance (1995), the only postcolonial ...
Inhalt
1 Contemporary Perspectives on Empathy | 3 |
2 The Literary Career of Empathy | 37 |
3 Readers Empathy | 65 |
4 Empathy in the Marketplace | 101 |
5 Authors Empathy | 121 |
6 Contesting Empathy | 145 |
A Collection of Hypotheses about Narrative Empathy | 169 |
Notes | 173 |
Works Cited | 209 |
Index | 235 |
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Empathy and the Novel Broadus Professor of English Suzanne Keen,Suzanne Keen Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 2007 |
Häufige Begriffe und Wortgruppen
activity aesthetic altruism Anil’s Ghost another’s argues authors Batson behavior believe Book Club brain Butler C. K. Stead chapter character identification character’s cognitive compassion contemporary cultivation cultural Daniel Batson discussion effects of reading Efuru emotional contagion emotional responses empa empathetic reading experiences empathetic response empathic inaccuracy emphasize ethical false empathy female Female Genital Cutting fictional characters fictional worlds fMRI gender genres Hakemulder Hoffman imagination individuals instance intentionally left blank J. K. Rowling Kuiken literary reading literature Martha Nussbaum Miall middlebrow mirror neurons Mistry’s Moral Development motives Nancy Eisenberg narration narrative empathy novel reading novelists Nussbaum Octavia Butler Ondaatje one’s Oprah personal distress popular postcolonial prosocial action psychologists reactions readers representation rescuers responses to fiction result role taking role-taking shared feeling social story suggests sympathy texts theorists theory tion tive understanding universal victims Victorian Wayne Booth Winfrey Winfrey’s women writing