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 93
Seite vii
... reading, empathy, and altruism, exploring the implications for literary studies of the widely promulgated “empathy ... reading as a stimulus to the role-taking imagination and emotional responsiveness of readers—in countless reading ...
... reading, empathy, and altruism, exploring the implications for literary studies of the widely promulgated “empathy ... reading as a stimulus to the role-taking imagination and emotional responsiveness of readers—in countless reading ...
Seite viii
... reading and emotion sharing abilities. The activation of onlookers' mirror ... literary form, with outcomes of changed attitudes, improved motives, and ... reading goes into this mix, catalyzing fears that the evaporation of a reading ...
... reading and emotion sharing abilities. The activation of onlookers' mirror ... literary form, with outcomes of changed attitudes, improved motives, and ... reading goes into this mix, catalyzing fears that the evaporation of a reading ...
Seite ix
... literary analysis may assist psychologists and neuroscientists in the framing of the next layer of questions about readers, empathy, and altruism. Discoveries about narrative empathy may also help explain aspects of literary response ...
... literary analysis may assist psychologists and neuroscientists in the framing of the next layer of questions about readers, empathy, and altruism. Discoveries about narrative empathy may also help explain aspects of literary response ...
Seite x
... readers, then the ways in which they respond to texts ought to matter to literary professionals. Publishers, agents, and novelists themselves do not need to be convinced of this, but disdain for the preferences of feeling readers ...
... readers, then the ways in which they respond to texts ought to matter to literary professionals. Publishers, agents, and novelists themselves do not need to be convinced of this, but disdain for the preferences of feeling readers ...
Seite xi
... literature.12 Within literary studies, readerresponse criticism, reception theory,13 and literary theories of affect14 contribute insights and analytical methods. This book participates in the growing interdisciplinary field, cognitive ...
... literature.12 Within literary studies, readerresponse criticism, reception theory,13 and literary theories of affect14 contribute insights and analytical methods. This book participates in the growing interdisciplinary field, cognitive ...
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 |
Andere Ausgaben - Alle anzeigen
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