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 53
Seite ix
... popular fiction, which has not often been praised for the beneficial effects attributed to great literature. If immersion in culturally valued fictional worlds—canonical literature and serious fiction—predisposes readers to good ...
... popular fiction, which has not often been praised for the beneficial effects attributed to great literature. If immersion in culturally valued fictional worlds—canonical literature and serious fiction—predisposes readers to good ...
Seite xi
... popular works of Antonio Damasio and Joseph LeDoux, has brought emotion back into the critical conversation.15 The developing field of cognitive literary studies recognizes that “literary works—whether fictional or not—have an emotional ...
... popular works of Antonio Damasio and Joseph LeDoux, has brought emotion back into the critical conversation.15 The developing field of cognitive literary studies recognizes that “literary works—whether fictional or not—have an emotional ...
Seite xiv
... popular fiction must be accorded the respect of experimental inquiry. It will not do to allow introspective accounts of reading (or teaching) canonical works of nineteenth-century fiction to substitute for broad inquiry into the effects ...
... popular fiction must be accorded the respect of experimental inquiry. It will not do to allow introspective accounts of reading (or teaching) canonical works of nineteenth-century fiction to substitute for broad inquiry into the effects ...
Seite xv
... popular novels give readers something to talk about and can contribute to the formation of those little ad hoc communities of fellow-feeling that arise when several who love a particular novel or novelist meet and share their enthusiasm ...
... popular novels give readers something to talk about and can contribute to the formation of those little ad hoc communities of fellow-feeling that arise when several who love a particular novel or novelist meet and share their enthusiasm ...
Seite xxii
... popular understanding of empathy. Drawing primarily on the recent psychological literature on empathy and altruism, this introductory chapter explores some of the open questions about empathy, including its relationship to real-world ...
... popular understanding of empathy. Drawing primarily on the recent psychological literature on empathy and altruism, this introductory chapter explores some of the open questions about empathy, including its relationship to real-world ...
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