Cognitive Literary StudieS emerged in the 1980s from the investigation of literature in relation to the embodied mind. Today we may define the field as an interdisciplinary initiative that integrates humanistic and scientific approaches and methodologies into a powerful tool to explore the complex dynamics between cognition and literature.1 In this chapter we provide readers with a sense of how some of the most significant lines of inquiry in cognitive literary studies have evolved during the last few years. We will highlight a few representative themes and studies, focusing on recent developments and what we see as new directions. Our objective is to emphasize both the continuity and the vitality of a field that is based on a dialogue among a variety of disciplines.2 i. Further expLoring disCourse And the embodied mind Several cognitive literary approaches have placed language and mental processing at the core of their inquiry, with humanists and scientists exploring literature both as a cognitive act but also as a key to understanding how the mind works. Over the last few years, researchers have stressed the need to consider cognitive processes and literary artifacts in relation to phenomenological and contextual factors, such as feeling or medium (the format in which stories come to us), in order to obtain a more coherent picture of literature as a discursive phenomenon.

CfP -- appel à communications Study day on cognitive literary studies, May 22, 2020, LSRS Luxembourg Journée d'études sur les études littéraires cognitives, le 22 mai 2020, LSRS Luxembourg

2012

Introducing the volume, this short chapter discusses the dynamic, relational nature of cognitive literary studies and the field's commitment to seeking points of convergence with a variety of theoretical paradigms in literary and cultural studies. It argues against "consilience" between literary studies and sciences, pointing out that the division between the sciences and the humanities, though far from ideal in many ways, reflects meaningful differences in ways of thinking about the world. It further stresses the openness and unpredictability of new areas of cognitive literary criticism, including cognitive disability studies, cognitive queer studies, and studies of the new unconscious, and it discusses the centrality of the study of emotions to a cognitivist inquiry. The introduction concludes by commenting on other thriving areas of cognitive theory, including those represented by the Society for Cognitive Studies of the Moving Image (SCSMI).

World Literature Studies 5, Vol. 7 (24). Bratislava.

Sophia Wege and Roman Mikuláš (Eds.)

Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America, 2012

Theoria et Historia Scientiarum, 2016

In the review, I examine the Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Literary Studies, a volume edited by Lisa Zunshine (2015), from the perspective of selected arguments found in the essays.

Lingua. Language and Culture Lingua. , 2019

In this survey article, Jean-François Vernay purports to retrace the genesis of Cognitive Literary Studies and examine its potential to bring scientific insights to the study of literature. More specifically, his reflexion attempts to determine whether Cognitive Literary Studies is able to bridge “the excitement of connecting scientific principles with a love of literature”, as Peter Stockwell has it. Vernay explores the cognitive and literary intersections through which the cognitive paradigm in Literary Studies is helping to redefine the boundaries between literary and scientific knowledge, renew literary criticism and reconsider one of the defining traits of fiction. What might be dismissed as an umpteenth interdisciplinary approach may in fact hold the key to discarding blue-sky conceptions of fiction while giving teachers and book professionals a cogent and much-coveted argument for the usefulness of literature.

2014

Cognitive literary research began to emerge in the 1980s when cognitive linguists discovered that numerous basic processes of human thinking could be revealed and studied within the field of literature. The study presents a survey of cognitive literary studies, research programmes, disciplines and outputs. The general goal of cognitive literary science is to identify common principles and processes of the literary text, imagination and thinking. This means providing a cognitive explanation with regard to the operation, constituents, methods and purposes of the literary process. It could be said, that every interpretation of noncognitive literary studies has tended to reveal more correct principles of literature, and even more correct meaning/representation of a work of art (e.g. structuralism). Cognitive literary research/science reassesses these aims. If we add the authorial and perceptive procedural competences (memory, attention, emotions, etc.) to the system of literary notions,...