Strange concepts and the stories they make possible : cognition, culture, narrative

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書誌事項

Strange concepts and the stories they make possible : cognition, culture, narrative

Lisa Zunshine

Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008

  • : hbk
  • : pbk

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注記

Includes bibliographical references (p. [195]-205) and index

内容説明・目次

巻冊次

: hbk ISBN 9780801887062

内容説明

In this fresh and often playful interdisciplinary study, Lisa Zunshine presents a fluid discussion of how key concepts from cognitive science complicate our cultural interpretations of "strange" literary phenomena. From Short Circuit to I, Robot, from The Parent Trap to Big Business, fantastic tales of rebellious robots, animated artifacts, and twins mistaken for each other are a permanent fixture in popular culture and have been since antiquity. Why do these strange concepts captivate the human imagination so thoroughly? Zunshine explores how cognitive science, specifically its ideas of essentialism and functionalism, combined with historical and cultural analysis, can help us understand why we find such literary phenomena so fascinating. Drawing from research by such cognitive evolutionary anthropologists and psychologists as Scott Atran, Paul Bloom, Pascal Boyer, and Susan A. Gelman, Zunshine examines the cognitive origins of the distinction between essence and function and how unexpected tensions between these two concepts are brought into play in fictional narratives. Discussing motifs of confused identity and of twins in drama, science fiction's use of robots, cyborgs, and androids, and nonsense poetry and surrealist art, she reveals the range and power of key concepts from science in literary interpretation and provides insight into how cognitive-evolutionary research on essentialism can be used to study fiction as well as everyday strange concepts.

目次

Acknowledgments Part 1: "But what am I, then?": Chasing Personal Essences across National Literatures 1. Ural Mountains-Rome-London 2. Essentialism, Functionalism, and Cognitive Psychology 3. Possible Evolutionary Origins of Essentialist Thinking 4. "A bullet's a bullet's a bullet!" 5. Talk to the Door Politely or Tickle It in Exactly the Right Place 6. Resisting Essentialism 7. The Ever-Receding "Essence" of Sosia 8. Identical Twins and Theater 9. How Is Mr. Darcy Different from Colin Firth? 10. Looking for the Real Mademoiselle 11. "Mahatma Gandhi: war!" "But he was a pacifist." "Right! War!" Part 2: Why Robots Go Astray, or The Cognitive Foundations of the Frankenstein Complex 1. What Is the Frankenstein Complex? 2. On Zygoons, Thricklers, and Kerpas 3. Theory of Mind 4. Theory of Mind and Categorization: Preliminary Implications 5. Concepts That Resist Categorization 6. . . . and the Stories They Make Possible 7. The Stories That Can Be Told about a Talking Needle 8. Asimov's "The Bicentennial Man" 9. Cognitive Construction of "Undoubted Facts": "The Bicentennial Man" and the Logic of Essentialism 10. Made to Rebel 11. Why Phyllis Is Still a Robot 12. . . . and Why Rei Toei Is Not 13. More Human Than Thou (Piercy's He, She and It) 14. Made to Pray 15. Made to Serve. Made to Obey. Made to Break Hearts Part 3: Some Species of Nonsense 1. How Nonsense Makes Sense in The Hunting of the Snark 2. "Strings of Impossibilia" and What They Tell Us about the Value of Nonsense 3. "Painters of the Unimaginable," or More aboutReally Strange Concepts Conclusion: Almost beyond Fiction Notes Bibliography Index
巻冊次

: pbk ISBN 9780801887079

内容説明

In this fresh and often playful interdisciplinary study, Lisa Zunshine presents a fluid discussion of how key concepts from cognitive science complicate our cultural interpretations of "strange" literary phenomena. From Short Circuit to I, Robot, from The Parent Trap to Big Business, fantastic tales of rebellious robots, animated artifacts, and twins mistaken for each other are a permanent fixture in popular culture and have been since antiquity. Why do these strange concepts captivate the human imagination so thoroughly? Zunshine explores how cognitive science, specifically its ideas of essentialism and functionalism, combined with historical and cultural analysis, can help us understand why we find such literary phenomena so fascinating. Drawing from research by such cognitive evolutionary anthropologists and psychologists as Scott Atran, Paul Bloom, Pascal Boyer, and Susan A. Gelman, Zunshine examines the cognitive origins of the distinction between essence and function and how unexpected tensions between these two concepts are brought into play in fictional narratives. Discussing motifs of confused identity and of twins in drama, science fiction's use of robots, cyborgs, and androids, and nonsense poetry and surrealist art, she reveals the range and power of key concepts from science in literary interpretation and provides insight into how cognitive-evolutionary research on essentialism can be used to study fiction as well as everyday strange concepts.

目次

Acknowledgments Part 1: "But what am I, then?": Chasing Personal Essences across National Literatures 1. Ural Mountains–Rome–London 2. Essentialism, Functionalism, and Cognitive Psychology 3. Possible Evolutionary Origins of Essentialist Thinking 4. "A bullet's a bullet's a bullet!" 5. Talk to the Door Politely or Tickle It in Exactly the Right Place 6. Resisting Essentialism 7. The Ever-Receding "Essence" of Sosia 8. Identical Twins and Theater 9. How Is Mr. Darcy Different from Colin Firth? 10. Looking for the Real Mademoiselle 11. "Mahatma Gandhi: war!" "But he was a pacifist." "Right! War!" Part 2: Why Robots Go Astray, or The Cognitive Foundations of the Frankenstein Complex 1. What Is the Frankenstein Complex? 2. On Zygoons, Thricklers, and Kerpas 3. Theory of Mind 4. Theory of Mind and Categorization: Preliminary Implications 5. Concepts That Resist Categorization 6. . . . and the Stories They Make Possible 7. The Stories That Can Be Told about a Talking Needle 8. Asimov's "The Bicentennial Man" 9. Cognitive Construction of "Undoubted Facts": "The Bicentennial Man" and the Logic of Essentialism 10. Made to Rebel 11. Why Phyllis Is Still a Robot 12. . . . and Why Rei Toei Is Not 13. More Human Than Thou (Piercy's He, She and It) 14. Made to Pray 15. Made to Serve. Made to Obey. Made to Break Hearts Part 3: Some Species of Nonsense 1. How Nonsense Makes Sense in The Hunting of the Snark 2. "Strings of Impossibilia" and What They Tell Us about the Value of Nonsense 3. "Painters of the Unimaginable," or More aboutReally Strange Concepts Conclusion: Almost beyond Fiction Notes Bibliography Index

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