Cognitive literary studies. Theories, methodologies, and challenges

Abstracts of no more than 300 words, either in English or in French, as well as a bio-bibliographic notice (100-150 words), should be sent to diana.mistreanu lsrs.lu by March 1, 2020.

The authors will receive a notification of acceptance before March 15, 2020.

Keynote speaker: Prof. Marco Caracciolo, University of Ghent

This event is the first in a series of study days on cognitive literary studies that will take place at the LSRS. The goal of this event is to prepare the international conference on cognitive literary studies organised by the LSRS in 2021.

Topic

According to Lisa Zunshine, the best definition of cognitive literary studies belongs to Alan Richardson: “the work of literary critics and theorists vitally interested in cognitive science […] and therefore with a good deal to say to one another, whatever their differences” [1]. Far from forming a school or a homogenous theoretical field, cognitive approaches to literature appeared in the 1980s and consist of bringing together literary interpretation and the paradigm that has been dominating science since the late 1950s. As Terence Cave puts it, although they do not hold a central place in literary studies, the methodologies that use cognitive science in literary interpretation are becoming more and more numerous [2]. Likewise, Lisa Zunshine noticed the exponential growth of the number of researchers interested in this field, stating that in 1999, when the Modern Language Association created its official discussion group on this topic, the group consisted of 250 members and by 2009, it already had 700 members, and in 2013, 2000 [3]. That said, in 2019, the interest in the study of literature through a cognitive prism has still not really left the Anglo-Saxon space where it emerged [4], despite a number of significant contributions that hail from other spaces, particularly from France and Italy [5], but also from Norway [6], Hungary [7], and Romania [8]. Cognitive literary studies is nowadays an eclectic, dynamic and promising field, which – despite the scepticism of those who do not share our interest for the study of the link between literature on the one hand, and the human mind and brain on the other – enriches our understanding of fiction, as well as of ourselves. In the end, stories reveal, as Mary-Laure Ryan reminds us, “the functioning of the human mind in one of its most fundamental, universal, and complex manifestations” [9].

On the one hand, cognitive literary studies resulted in the renewal of disciplines such as narratology [10] and poetics [11]. On the other hand, they provided new tools for the analysis of fiction. For instance, Monika Fludernik theorised the notion of “experientiality” [12], later taken up by Marco Caracciolo [13]. Guillemette Bolens examined the “kinaesthetic styles” and the literary depiction of embodied cognition [14]. Suzanne Keen suggested a typology of narrative empathy [15]. Sylvie Freyermuth, amongst others, turned to the theory of mind as a tool of literary interpretation [16], and researchers such as Alexandre Gefen and Emmanuel Bouju studied the status of emotions in literature [17]. Classical as well as contemporary authors have been productively (re)read through this innovative theoretical framework – see, for example, Mary Crane’s work on Shakespeare [18]. In the same vein, Emily Troscianko identified and theorised the aesthetics of cognitive realism [19], whilst Terence Cave developed a cognitive criticism [20]. Psychologists and neuroscientists such as Keith Oatley [21], Melanie Green, Timothy C. Brock [22], and Anna Abraham [23] investigated the mental and neural mechanisms at work during the interaction between fiction and the human mind and brain. Cognitive literary studies have also renewed the way in which we conceptualise fiction, through the prism of the theory of mind (Lisa Zunshine [24]) or through that of neurophenomenology (Paul Armstrong [25]). The status of the reader and the author are also being redefined [26], after several decades during which the author was excluded from literary analysis, while the reader was reduced to a mere abstract, operational, and disembodied notion (“implied reader”, “abstrakter Leser”).

Considering the eclecticism that defines cognitive literary studies as beneficial, we invite literary critics as well as researchers from all branches of cognitive science interested in this field to reflect together on the status, the theories, the methodologies and the challenges that cognitive literary studies are currently facing. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:

• literary fiction in the light of the enactive paradigm, the 4E (embodied, embedded, enactive, extended) cognition, and the interoceptive turn;
• cognitive realism;
• the embodied reader and the embodied author;
• narrative empathy;
• fiction and emotions;
• the literary depiction of human, animal and machine cognition;
• critics and limits of cognitive approaches to literature;
• the status of cognitive literary studies in contemporary research.

Other bibliographical references: see the attached document

Cognitive literary studies – Call for Papers

Scientific committee

• Prof. Jean Ehret, Luxembourg School of Religion & Society
• Prof. Sylvie Freyermuth, University of Luxembourg
• Prof. Marie-Agnès Cathiard, University of Grenoble-Alpes
• Prof. Timea Gyimesi, University of Szeged
• Diana Mistreanu, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow & Senior Lecturer, Luxembourg School of Religion & Society

Venue

Friday May 22, 2020, from 8:45 AM to 7:30 PM
Luxembourg School of Religion & Society
Centre Jean XXIII
52, rue Jules Wilhelm
L-2728 Luxembourg