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MLA Discussion Group for Cognitive
Approaches to Literature
Annual
Convention of the Modern Language Association
Washington, D.C., 27-30 December 2000
The Literary Imagination
Friday 29 December at 3:30-4:45pm
Wilson B at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel
Introduction | Program
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The Discussion Group for Cognitive Approaches to Literature |
The Literary
Imagination top
Organized by the Discussion Group for Cognitive Approaches to Literature
The imagination plays a central part in the phenomenon of literature,
but has recently been left largely ignored by the critical community. The
cognitive sciences provide a rich field of possibilities for approaching
the literary imagination, drawing both on the rich subjective phenomenology
of reading, the specific social circumstances of a literary practice, and
the underlying cognitive processes that engender and structure the imagination.
This year's speakers draw on a wide variety of cognitive tools, including
mental space theory, conceptual blending, the neuroscience of the emotions,
and the logic of visualization. We are delighted to host this occasion
for presenting exciting new work from the growing body of literary scholars
who look to the mind sciences for perspectives that challenge established
theoretical and interpretive tools.
| Presider | Ronald Schleifer University of Oklahoma |
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| 1. | Mental Spaces and Free Indirect Discourse | Vimala Herman University of Nottingham |
| 2. | Conceptual Integration as a Buddhist Literary Genre | D. Neil Schmid University of Pennsylvania |
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Skills of the Highly Affective
Reader, or How to Manage Gravity's Rainbow? |
Mark Hansen Princeton University |
| 4. | Literature and the Logic of Visualization | Mervyn Nicholson University College, BC |
Resources top
(see also the lists of publications following the abstracts and the General Resources on Cognitive Approaches to Literature; please send suggestions to Francis Steen).
Edelman, Gerald M. and Giulio Tononi. A Universe of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2000.
Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. Philosophy In the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books, 1999. Reviewed by Francis Steen.
Scarry, Elaine. Dreaming by the Book. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000. Reviewed by James Hood (external).
Schleifer, Ronald, Robert Con Davis, and Nancy L. Mergler (eds.) Culture and Cognition: The Boundaries of Literary and Scientific Inquiry. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1992.
Schleifer, Ronald. "Disciplinarity and Collaboration in the Sciences and Humanities." College English 59. 4 (April 1997): 438-452.
Turner, Mark. The Literary Mind. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1996. Reviews
and excerpts.
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Francis F. Steen,
Communication Studies, University of California, Los Angeles