This book encourages cross-disciplinary dialogues toward introducing a new framework for neuro-narratology, expanding on established theory within cognitive narratology to more fully encompass the different faculties involved in the reading process.
To investigate narrative cognition, the book traces the ways in which cognitive patterns of embodiment – and the neural connections that comprise them – in the reading process are translated into patterns in narrative fiction. Drawing theories of episodic memories and nonvisual perception of space, Farmasi draws on theories of episodic memories and nonvisual perception of space in analyzing a range of narratives from twentieth century prose. The first set of analyses shines a light on perception and emotion in narrative discourses and the construction of storyworlds, while the second foregrounds the reader’s experience. The volume makes the case for the fact that narratives need to be understood as dynamic elements of the interaction between mind, body, and environment, generating new insights and inspiring further research.
This book will appeal to scholars interested in narrative theory, literary studies, cognitive science, neuroscience, and philosophy.
Author(s): Lilla Farmasi
Series: Routledge Research in Cognitive Humanities
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 168
City: New York
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Acknowledgments
Part I: From cognitive narratology, to neuro-narratology
Introduction
Narrative (cognition)
Narratological roots
Interdisciplinary work: humanities and natural science
Neuro-narratives
Notes
1. Neuro-narratology
Knowledge production
Embodiment
Reading in the brain
Mirror neurons
Toward neuro-narratology
Motor resonance
Notes
2. Spatial perception, negative emotions, and narratives
Narrative cognition and spatial cognition
Space, conceptualization, and language
Disorders in spatial experience
Embodied emotions: fear and anxiety
Notes
Part II: Sense perceptions and storyworlds
3. Sense perceptions and representation of consciousness in the storyworld of Vladimir Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading and Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum"
Embodiment, sense perception, and consciousness in Nabokov's works
Liquidity, current, and "the idea of revolution"
Sense perceptions
Narrative space and motion
Embodied experience and the absurd
Conclusion
Notes
4. Storytelling with Tourette's syndrome in Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn
Tourette's syndrome. "'I consist of tics - there is nothing else'"
Tourette's syndrome versus storytelling
Narrative organization
Conclusion
Notes
5. Narrative space and motion(lessness) in "The Ivory Acrobat"
Cognition and embodiment DeLillo's fiction
Sensing and constructing space in the "The Ivory Acrobat"
Conclusion
Notes
Part III: Sense perceptions and readerly experience
6. Narrative experience as kinetosis for the reader: spatial perception in The Body Artist
Image schemas and conceptual metaphors in literature
Plot model in motion in DeLillo's The Body Artist
Conclusion
Notes
7. Disorientation, dislocation, and disnarration in Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves
House of Leaves
Engaging and dislocating the reader
Uncertainty, anxiety, and the functioning of cognitive schemas
Disnarration
Uncertainty, anxiety, and the functioning of cognitive schemas
Conclusion
Notes
8. Representation of dissociation and negative emotions in Haruki Murakami's "Sleep"
"Sleep"
Dissociation, disnarration, cognition
Dissociation and negative emotions
Conclusion
Notes
9. Conclusion and afterthoughts
Notes
References
Index
