Empathy and the NovelDoes 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
Results 1-5 of 61
Page ix
They emphasize the universality of human emotional responses in their reports on reading, sometimes undervaluing real differences among people of diverse cultures. They unself-consciously judge the success of novels based on how well ...
They emphasize the universality of human emotional responses in their reports on reading, sometimes undervaluing real differences among people of diverse cultures. They unself-consciously judge the success of novels based on how well ...
Page xi
This book participates in the growing interdisciplinary field, cognitive approaches to literary study, but it emphasizes affect. For many decades, literary study has tacitly obeyed the strictures of W. K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley in ...
This book participates in the growing interdisciplinary field, cognitive approaches to literary study, but it emphasizes affect. For many decades, literary study has tacitly obeyed the strictures of W. K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley in ...
Page xiii
This would make the effects of reading difficult to measure because the altruistic actions might be taken at some distance from the reading experience, a point that emphasizes the need for longitudinal studies of readers' lives ...
This would make the effects of reading difficult to measure because the altruistic actions might be taken at some distance from the reading experience, a point that emphasizes the need for longitudinal studies of readers' lives ...
Page xiv
Broadcast strategic empathy calls upon every reader to feel with members of a group, by emphasizing common vulnerabilities and hopes through universalizing representations. In the course of exploring this theory of narrative empathy, ...
Broadcast strategic empathy calls upon every reader to feel with members of a group, by emphasizing common vulnerabilities and hopes through universalizing representations. In the course of exploring this theory of narrative empathy, ...
Page xviii
... emphasize her faith in the efficacy of the right kind of novel reading. For Steven Pinker, human beings need not be in school studying canonical writers to enjoy the benefits of what he names a “moral technology,” storytelling.
... emphasize her faith in the efficacy of the right kind of novel reading. For Steven Pinker, human beings need not be in school studying canonical writers to enjoy the benefits of what he names a “moral technology,” storytelling.
What people are saying - Write a review
We haven't found any reviews in the usual places.
Contents
1 Contemporary Perspectives on Empathy | 3 |
2 The Literary Career of Empathy | 37 |
3 Readers Empathy | 65 |
4 Empathy in the Marketplace | 101 |
5 Authors Empathy | 121 |
6 Contesting Empathy | 145 |
A Collection of Hypotheses about Narrative Empathy | 169 |
Notes | 173 |
Works Cited | 209 |
Index | 235 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
activity aesthetic 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 emotional contagion emotional responses empa empathetic reading experiences empathetic response empathic inaccuracy emphasize ethical false empathy female Female Genital Cutting fictional characters fictional worlds fMRI gender genres Hakemulder Hoffman imagination individuals instance intentionally left blank J. K. Rowling Kuiken literary reading literature Martha Nussbaum Miall middlebrow mirror neurons Mistry’s Moral Development motives Nancy Eisenberg narration narrative empathy novel reading novelists Nussbaum Octavia Butler Ondaatje one’s Oprah personal distress popular postcolonial prosocial action psychologists reactions readers representation rescuers responses to fiction result role taking role-taking shared feeling social story suggests sympathy texts theorists theory tion tive understanding universal victims Victorian Wayne Booth Winfrey Winfrey’s women writing