Israel, June 2001

Roundtable #3
Culture and Cognition

Cognitive literary studies is often implicitly perceived as antagonistic to feminist and cultural materialist approaches to literature and culture. The purpose of our roundtable on cognition and cultural studies is, first, to examine some of the assumptions underlying this view of cognitive literary studies as a "scientifically supported" neo-formalist retreat from "theory," and, second, to demonstrate that the cognitive approach can and does work with and not against other contemporary critical paradigms.

Structured as a sequence of five ten-minute position statements (or openers) followed by a general discussion, our roundtable will be theoretically informed as well as committed to providing specific examples of interaction between cultural and cognitive studies. Our key rationale behind organizing this forum is the realization that as a developing new field, the cognitive approach to literature needs to make a connection with other important theoretical developments within the literary studies, and our key goal is to articulate the epistemological foundation for such a connection as well as its challenges.

Moderator
Lisa Zunshine

Participants
Mary Crane, Liz Hart, Ellen Spolsky, Joe Bizup, Alan Richardson

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