Related Papers
Anezka Kuzmicova, Anne Mangen, Research Centre KAIROS
The objective of this article is to review extant empirical studies of empathy in narrative reading in light of (i) contemporary literary theory, and (ii) neuroscientific studies of empathy, and to discuss how a closer interplay between neuroscience and literary studies may enhance our understanding of empathy in narrative reading. An introduction to some of the philosophical roots of empathy is followed by tracing its application in contemporary literary theory, in which scholars have pursued empathy with varying degrees of conceptual precision, often within the context of embodied/enactive cognition. The presentation of empirical literary studies of empathy is subsequently contextualized by an overview of psychological and neuroscientific aspects of empathy. Highlighting points of convergence and divergence, the discussion illustrates how findings of empirical literary studies align with recent neuroscientific research. The article concludes with some prospects for future empirical research, suggesting that digitization may contribute to advancing the scientific knowledge of empathy in narrative reading.
Affective Ecologies: Empathy, Emotion, and Environmental Narrative
2017 •
Alexa Weik von Mossner
Affective Ecologies is an exploration of our emotional engagement with environmental narrative. Focusing on the American cultural context, the book develops an ecocritical approach that draws on the insights of affective science and cognitive narratology in order to give us a better understanding of how we interact with such narratives in ways that are both biologically universal and culturally specific. In doing so, it pays particular attention to the thesis that our minds are both embodied (in a physical body) and embedded (in a physical environment), not only when we interact with the real world but also in our engagement with imaginary worlds. How do we experience the virtual environments we encounter in literature and film on the sensory and emotional level? How do environmental narratives invite us to care for human and nonhuman others who are put at risk? And how do we feel about the speculative futures presented to us in ecotopian and ecodystopian texts? These are the central questions that are explored in the three parts of the book, questions that are important for anyone with an interest in the emotional appeal and persuasive power of environmental narratives.
Aesthetic Engagement During Moments of Suffering
Don Kuiken
We provide a review of the literature concerning aesthetic engagement (especially with literature and film) during times of distress. The objective is to offer a conceptual framework for this fledging research area and to provide a context for several manuscripts on this topic included in a Special Issue of Scientific Study of Literature (Volume 3, Issue 2). Particular attention is given to processes that arguably are distinctively aesthetic, including (1) the role of prosodic/semantic structures in the generation of local aesthetic objects within a longer narrative; (2) the identification of an affective theme through reflective consideration of a series of separate—but resonant—local aesthetic objects; and (3) the consequent emergence of poignantly bivalent feelings tinged with loss. This framework invites reconsideration of the Aristotelian conception of catharsis (understood as clarification rather than purgation), as well as examination of how poignant aesthetic engagement invites revaluation of personal priorities during moments of vulnerability.
Mark Ward
This chapter examines the meaning-making functions of cinematic sound from the perspective of embodied cognition. Using embodied simulation theory (Gallese, 2005) as a unifying framework, and placing particular emphasis upon the affective aspects of ‘Feeling of Body’ (Wojciehowski & Gallese, 2011), an account of cinematic media emerges which puts into play Mark Johnson’s concept of ‘embodied meaning’ (Johnson, 2007). Central to Johnson’s concept is the assertion that all human meaning, abstract conceptual thinking, and imagination have basis in our sensorimotor interactions with the world. In the context of cinematic media, it suggests the stylistic crafting and patterning of perceptual content not only elicits an affective response but also shapes cognition. Drawing upon examples of cinematic sound design an embodied aesthetics is illustrated.
Programme PAD 2018.pdf
asher albo
Genealogy of personification of God in the Jewish pre-modern literature
“An Overview of Recent Developments in Cognitive Literary Studies.” In Cognitive Literary Studies: Current Themes and New Directions. Austin: U of Texas P, 2012. 13-32. [Co-authored by Isabel Jaén and Julien J. Simon]
Julien J Simon, Isabel Jaén Portillo
‘Film Narrative and Embodied Cognition: The Impact of Image Schemas on Narrative Form.’ In. Coëgnarts and Kravanja (eds.) Embodied Cognition and Cinema. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2015: 43-61.
Miklos Kiss
Vittorio Gallese and Michele Guerra’s seminal article on the relation between embodied simulation and Film Studies mentions ‘at least three types of embodiment related to cinema: i) film style as embodiment; ii) acting style as embodiment; iii) viewer’s responses to filmed bodies and objects as embodiment’ (206). I would like to extend Gallese and Guerra’s typology with another domain through which embodied cognition relates to cinema. By revealing some of the physiological, psychological, and environmental constraints and constituents of viewers’ meaning making processes in film, this chapter brings narrative theories and embodied cognitive approaches into collaboration, exposing the relation between film narrative and embodied cognition. Generally, the following chapter addresses the question ‘how the thoughts, feelings, and perceptions of the minimal embodied and ecologically embedded self give rise to [film] narratives’ (Menary Embodied Narratives 75). Specifically, my contribution aims to unravel the initial, pre-cognitive part of a complex process that guides one’s narrative meaning making activity. While I will touch upon the theory of cognitive mental models and their relation to the invocation of narrative models, the main focus will be on embodied image schemas, as dynamic patterns of our shared bodily interactions, and their formative role in the initiation of elementary narrative schemas, as deeply embodied, internally organized formal gestalts. The present chapter consists of five parts. Following an introduction and a concise overview of the relevant aspects of (1) embodied cognition and (2) image schemas, I present a working definition of (3) narrative form that corresponds with the introduced theoretical approach. Narrowing down my focus to viewers’ meaning making processes of organizing information into intelligible forms (4), the chapter offers an attempt at connecting embodied and cognitive (that is embodied-cognitive) approaches with narrative theories, supporting a general explanatory model of understanding narrative film. Lastly, (5) the presented theoretical arguments will be illustrated through examples that elucidate the reliance of various narrative forms on embodied cognition. In order to confine theoretical redundancy among the chapters of this volume to the minimum, I have kept the overview of embodied cognition brief, and have chosen to concentrate on its specific relevance to the construction and comprehension of narrative forms.
What is the Cognitive Neuroscience of Art…and Why Should We Care? The American Society for Aesthetics Newsletter, 31(2), Summer 2011: 1-4.
William Seeley
Philosophical Aesthetics: A Naturalist Perspective
Laura T. Di Summa
"Film Music as Embodiment" In Maarten Coëgnarts and Peter Kravanja (eds.) Embodied Cognition and Cinema. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2015: 81-112.
Juan Chattah
Music is a multi-parametric construct that operates at an almost subliminal level to support, highlight, complement, or even negate any other aspect of the cinematic experience. Current trends of film scoring reflect a fading interest in the associative dimensions of music; rather, composers now strive to contribute with a phenomenological score. It is primarily through embodiment, a hardwired process grounded in our physiology and cognition, that music functions phenomenologically within lm. Embodiment mediates signification, enabling the music to guide the audience’s attention toward particular visual events, to shape the perception of segmentation at micro- and macro-levels, to trigger a myriad of bodily states, and ultimately to present a unique perspective on the discourse of characters and cinematic narrative. Although most film-scoring techniques have gradually emerged through the intuitive use of music, interdisciplinary strands of scholarship from embodied cognition can be instrumental to examine these techniques from empirical and theoretical perspectives, and thus shed light on the logic that motivates the interaction between music and other facets of the cinematic experience.
