Cognition, Literature, and History

by Donald R. Wehrs (Editor)

Cognition, Literature, and History models the ways in which cognitive and literary studies may collaborate and thereby mutually advance. It shows how understanding of underlying structures of mind can productively inform literary analysis and historical inquiry, and how formal and historical analysis of distinctive literary works can reciprocally enrich our understanding of those underlying structures. Applying the cognitive neuroscience of categorization, emotion, figurative thinking, narrativity, self-awareness, theory of mind, and wayfinding to the study of literary works and genres from diverse historical periods and cultures, the authors argue that literary experience proceeds from, qualitatively heightens, and selectively informs and even reforms our evolved and embodied capacities for thought and feeling. This volume investigates and locates the complex intersections of cognition, literature, and history in order to advance interdisciplinary discussion and research in poetics, literary history, and cognitive science.

284 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Donald R. "Don" Wehrs, Ph.D. (University of Virginia), is Hargis Professor of English Literature in the Department of English at Auburn University, Alabama. He specializes in novel genre and history, British eighteenth-century studies, literary theory, postcolonial studies, and comparative literature, and is the author of three books on African fiction.