Have cognitive scientists misread autism? What happens if, instead of simply accepting such research, literary critics turned to the actual prose and poetry written by autistic authors, such as Tito Mukhopadhyay and Donna Williams? Literary theory may never be the same once it comes to terms with neurodiversity.

This is a short introductory essay for _The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Literary Studies_, published in 2015. The areas covered by _The Handbook_ include cognitive historicism, cognitive narratology, cognitive queer theory, neuroaesthetics, cognitive postcolonial studies, studies in emotions and empathy, decision theory, cognitive disability…[Read more]

“The Secret Life of Fiction” uses cognitive literary theory to critique the failure of “The Common Core Standards Initiative” to recognize fiction as a catalyst of complex thinking in students.

Studying William Blake means studying the event of history, the way history merges with and emerges within theology, politics and philosophy. William Blake’s poetry has had a precarious relationship with history; his work resonates from very specific historical concerns and yet also seems to struggle against being confined to any formal h…[Read more]

This piece presents a tripartite analysis of the relationship between the philosophical works of Ludwig Wittgenstein and the novels of Thomas Pynchon. This is broadly structured around three schools of Wittgenstein scholarship identified by Guy Kahane et al. as the Orthodox Tractatus, the New Wittgenstein, and several strands of the Orthodox…[Read more]

Kafka’s Romanticism/Platonism is hidden underneath the covers. In this article I show how better translations can help the reader take the covers off the bed. Whether it be K.’s meeting with Buergel in the Castle or with the Josef K.’s meeting with the Priest in The Trial,
essentially the message resonates. A preview of ESSENTIAL KAFKA.

“Becoming-animal” is a term used by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in their work, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia which at times can designate a movement towards denigration. With a “becoming,” a threshold is, invariably, crossed and the boundaries that have existed between the animal and the human become blurred. Moreover…[Read more]

This article considers the performances of “animal drag” that appear across the affiliated US media projects of Jackass (the television program and film franchise) and Wildboyz (the television program). Drawing on transgender studies scholarship, as well as recent work in affect theory, animal studies, and environmental studies, Nicole Seymour arg…[Read more]

Designed as a short introduction to academic literary studies of affect, Reading Affect in Literary Studies is a one-credit graduate seminar, offered in Spring 2014, that was framed by the question of how we might rethink our practice as scholars of literature to take our scholarship to publics beyond the academy. Readings included work by Rita…[Read more]

Although the question of the role of empathy in our experience of fiction is currently an active one in psychology, most of the relevant research has been conducted on popular literature and film. This dissertation seeks to change that by using cognitive approaches to literature to examine how and why postmodern texts disrupt the reader or…[Read more]