Empathy and the NovelOxford University Press, USA, 2007 M04 19 - 242 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. |
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Page xiii
... action . Some scholars of discourse processing believe that readers ' empathy could produce verifiable results in the beliefs and actions of populations of actual readers . Psychologists such as Martin Hoffman , whose theory of empathy ...
... action . Some scholars of discourse processing believe that readers ' empathy could produce verifiable results in the beliefs and actions of populations of actual readers . Psychologists such as Martin Hoffman , whose theory of empathy ...
Page 47
... action , grow less and less vivid every time they occur , till at length the mind grows absolutely callous . The being affected with a pathetic story is undoubtedly a sign of an amiable disposition , but perhaps no means of increasing ...
... action , grow less and less vivid every time they occur , till at length the mind grows absolutely callous . The being affected with a pathetic story is undoubtedly a sign of an amiable disposition , but perhaps no means of increasing ...
Page 48
... action . Though some Romantic writers felt qualms about the conversion of others ' suffering into aesthetic ... Action that the human mind “ is naturally interested in the wel- fare of others " ( " Human Action " 3 ) , that the ...
... action . Though some Romantic writers felt qualms about the conversion of others ' suffering into aesthetic ... Action that the human mind “ is naturally interested in the wel- fare of others " ( " Human Action " 3 ) , that the ...
Contents
Contemporary Perspectives on Empathy | 3 |
The Literary Career of Empathy | 37 |
Readers Empathy | 65 |
Copyright | |
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activity aesthetic altruism Anil's Ghost argues authors Batson behavior believe Bestsellers Book Club brain Butler C. K. Stead chapter character identification cognitive compassion contemporary cultivation cultural Daniel Batson David 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 film fMRI gender genres Hakemulder Hoffman imagination individuals instance Kuiken literary reading Literary Response literature Martha Nussbaum Miall middlebrow mirror neurons Mistry's Moral Development motives Nancy Eisenberg narration narrative empathy novel reading novelists Nussbaum Octavia Butler Ondaatje Oprah Oprah's Book Club popular postcolonial prosocial action psychology reactions reader-response criticism readers reports representation rescuers responses to fiction result role taking role-taking shared feeling social story suggests sympathy texts theorists theory tion tive understanding University Press victims VICTORIA-L Victorian Wayne Booth Winfrey Winfrey's women writing