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. |
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Page ix
... social psychology do not extend, according to most accounts, to prose fiction.7 The cultural tendency to value novels and denigrate cartoons or video games, however, contributes to assumptions about good and bad forms of narrative.
... social psychology do not extend, according to most accounts, to prose fiction.7 The cultural tendency to value novels and denigrate cartoons or video games, however, contributes to assumptions about good and bad forms of narrative.
Page xi
Developmental and social psychology, including the juncture of affect and social cognition, prove major resources. Philosophy offers provocative treatments of empathy and the intricate puzzle of our emotional responses to literature.12 ...
Developmental and social psychology, including the juncture of affect and social cognition, prove major resources. Philosophy offers provocative treatments of empathy and the intricate puzzle of our emotional responses to literature.12 ...
Page xii
Readers' empathy for situations depicted in fiction may be enhanced by chance relevance to particular historical, economic, cultural, or social circumstances, either in the moment of first publication or in later times, ...
Readers' empathy for situations depicted in fiction may be enhanced by chance relevance to particular historical, economic, cultural, or social circumstances, either in the moment of first publication or in later times, ...
Page xiv
While a full-fledged political movement, an appropriately inspiring social context, or an emergent structure of feeling promoting change may be necessary for efficacious action to arise out of internalized experiences of narrative ...
While a full-fledged political movement, an appropriately inspiring social context, or an emergent structure of feeling promoting change may be necessary for efficacious action to arise out of internalized experiences of narrative ...
Page xv
Rather than jumping to this conclusion, Empathy and the Novel asks its readers to consider that we have a great deal more to understand about narrative empathy before we place the novel in service to social goals, no matter how laudable ...
Rather than jumping to this conclusion, Empathy and the Novel asks its readers to consider that we have a great deal more to understand about narrative empathy before we place the novel in service to social goals, no matter how laudable ...
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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 |
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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
Bibliographic information
| Title | Empathy and the Novel |
| Author | Suzanne Keen |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press, 2007 |
| ISBN | 0195343603, 9780195343601 |
| Length | 274 pages |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |