Empathy and the NovelOxford University Press, 2007 M04 19 - 274 pages Does empathy felt while reading fiction actually cultivate a sense of connection, leading to altruistic actions on behalf of real others? Empathy and the Novel presents a comprehensive account of the relationships among novel reading, empathy, and altruism. Drawing on psychology, narrative theory, neuroscience, literary history, philosophy, and recent scholarship in discourse processing, Keen brings together resources and challenges for the literary study of empathy and the psychological study of fiction reading. Empathy robustly enters into affective responses to fiction, yet its role in shaping the behavior of emotional readers has been debated for three centuries. Keen surveys these debates and illustrates the techniques that invite empathetic response. She argues that the perception of fictiveness increases the likelihood of readers' empathy in part by releasing them from the guarded responses necessitated by the demands of real others. Narrative empathy is a strategy and subject of contemporary novelists from around the world, writers who tacitly endorse the potential universality of human emotions when they call upon their readers' empathy. If narrative empathy is to be taken seriously, Keen suggests, then women's reading and responses to popular fiction occupy a central position in literary inquiry, and cognitive literary studies should extend its range beyond canonical novels. In short, Keen's study extends the playing field for literature practitioners, causing it to resemble more closely that wide open landscape inhabited by readers. |
From inside the book
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... argues in a recent interview in Seed magazine that storytelling has made the human species “nicer” (“Seed Salon” 48); Pinker sees moral emotions as evolved traits that account for the statistical decline in the murder rate from the time ...
... argues in a recent interview in Seed magazine that storytelling has made the human species “nicer” (“Seed Salon” 48); Pinker sees moral emotions as evolved traits that account for the statistical decline in the murder rate from the time ...
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... argues that eighteenthcentury novels played an important part in advancing the concept of human rights.24 Indeed, if fiction can do what Nussbaum and Pinker believe, then why wouldn't history record some pretty dramatic effects of the ...
... argues that eighteenthcentury novels played an important part in advancing the concept of human rights.24 Indeed, if fiction can do what Nussbaum and Pinker believe, then why wouldn't history record some pretty dramatic effects of the ...
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... argues that the novel was immensely important in the “formation of imperial attitudes, references, and experiences” (Culture and Imperialism xii), attitudes that were often at odds with the development of human rights. To put it baldly ...
... argues that the novel was immensely important in the “formation of imperial attitudes, references, and experiences” (Culture and Imperialism xii), attitudes that were often at odds with the development of human rights. To put it baldly ...
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... argue that literature makes nothing happen. Simple accounts of the utility of novel reading, I argue, should be replaced by more nuanced study of the consequences of experiencing aesthetic emotions.30 The affective transaction across ...
... argue that literature makes nothing happen. Simple accounts of the utility of novel reading, I argue, should be replaced by more nuanced study of the consequences of experiencing aesthetic emotions.30 The affective transaction across ...
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... argue here that the very fictionality of novels predisposes readers to empathize with characters, since a fiction known to be “made up” does not activate suspicion and wariness as an apparently “real” appeal for assistance may do.5 I ...
... argue here that the very fictionality of novels predisposes readers to empathize with characters, since a fiction known to be “made up” does not activate suspicion and wariness as an apparently “real” appeal for assistance may do.5 I ...
Contents
The Literary Career of Empathy | |
Readers Empathy | |
Empathy in the Marketplace | |
Authors Empathy | |
Contesting Empathy | |
A Collection of Hypotheses about Narrative Empathy | |
Works Cited | |
Index | |
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Common terms and phrases
activity aesthetic Alexander McCall Smith altruism Anil’s Ghost another’s argues authors Batson behavior believe Book Club brain Butler C. K. Stead chapter character identification character’s cognitive compassion contemporary cultivation cultural Daniel Batson discussion effects of reading Efuru eighteenthcentury emotional contagion emotional responses empathetic reading experiences empathetic response empathic inaccuracy emphasize ethical false empathy female Female Genital Cutting fictional characters fictional worlds firstperson fMRI gender genres Hakemulder Hoffman imagination individuals instance Kuiken Leda Cosmides literary reading literature London Martha Nussbaum Miall middlebrow mirror neurons Mistry’s Moral Development motives Nancy Eisenberg narration narrative empathy novel reading novelists numbers Nussbaum Octavia Butler Ondaatje Ondaatje’s one’s Oprah personal distress philosophers popular postcolonial prosocial action reactions readers real world representation rescuers responses to fiction result role taking roletaking sensations story suggests sympathetic sympathy texts theorists theory understanding University Press victims VICTORIAL Victorian Wayne Booth Winfrey Winfrey’s women writing York