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. |
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Ergebnisse 1-5 von 66
Seite vii
... suggests novelist Sue Monk Kidd (“Common Heart” 9). Azar Nafisi affirms, “empathy is at the heart of the novel,” and warns, if you don't read, you won't be able to empathize (Reading Lolita 111). Is the attractive and consoling case for ...
... suggests novelist Sue Monk Kidd (“Common Heart” 9). Azar Nafisi affirms, “empathy is at the heart of the novel,” and warns, if you don't read, you won't be able to empathize (Reading Lolita 111). Is the attractive and consoling case for ...
Seite xii
... suggests that empathizers are better readers because their role-taking abilities allow them to more readily comprehend causal relations in stories.16) The timing and the context of the reading experience matters: the capacity of novels ...
... suggests that empathizers are better readers because their role-taking abilities allow them to more readily comprehend causal relations in stories.16) The timing and the context of the reading experience matters: the capacity of novels ...
Seite xiii
... suggests why authors themselves so often vouch for the centrality of empathy to novel reading and believe in the power of narrative empathy to change the minds and lives of readers. The belief mirrors their own experiences as ready ...
... suggests why authors themselves so often vouch for the centrality of empathy to novel reading and believe in the power of narrative empathy to change the minds and lives of readers. The belief mirrors their own experiences as ready ...
Seite xiv
... suggest that if narrative empathy is to be better understood, then women's reading and popular fiction must be accorded the respect of experimental inquiry. It will not do to allow introspective accounts of reading (or teaching) ...
... suggest that if narrative empathy is to be better understood, then women's reading and popular fiction must be accorded the respect of experimental inquiry. It will not do to allow introspective accounts of reading (or teaching) ...
Seite xv
... suggest that people who readily imagine fictional others' perspectives also grasp the variety and individuality of real others, but this discovery about empathetic dispositions may simply explain why certain people gravitate toward ...
... suggest that people who readily imagine fictional others' perspectives also grasp the variety and individuality of real others, but this discovery about empathetic dispositions may simply explain why certain people gravitate toward ...
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