Introduction to Cognitive Cultural Studies

by Lisa Zunshine

Leading scholars in cognitive cultural studies offer an engaging and accessible introduction to this emerging field.Drawing on the explosion of academic and public interest in cognitive science in the past two decades, this volume features articles that combine literary and cultural analysis with insights from neuroscience, cognitive evolutionary psychology and anthropology, and cognitive linguistics. Lisa Zunshine's introduction provides a broad overview of the field. The essays that follow are organized into four parts that explore developments in literary universals, cognitive historicism, cognitive narratology, and cognitive approaches in dialogue with other theoretical approaches, such as postcolonial studies, ecocriticism, aesthetics, and poststructuralism.Introduction to Cognitive Cultural Studies provides readers with grounding in several major areas of cognitive science, applies insights from cognitive science to cultural representations, and recognizes the cognitive approach's commitment to seeking common ground with existing literary-theoretical paradigms.This book is ideal for graduate courses and seminars devoted to cognitive approaches to cultural studies and literary criticism.

Genres: Nonfiction, Literary Criticism

Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Lisa Zunshine is Bush-Holbrook Professor of English at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, where she teaches courses in Restoration and eighteenth-century British literature and culture. She is a former Guggenheim fellow (2007) and the author or editor of eleven books, including Bastards and Foundlings: Illegitimacy in Eighteenth-Century England (2005), Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel (2006), Approaches to Teaching the Novels of Samuel Richardson (co-edited with Jocelyn Harris, 2006), Strange Concepts and the Stories They Make Possible: Cognition, Culture, Narrative (2008), Acting Theory and the English Stage (2009), Introduction to Cognitive Cultural Studies (ed., 2010), Approaches to Teaching the Works of John Dryden (co-edited with Jayne Lewis, 2013), Getting Inside Your Head: What Cognitive Science Can Tell Us about Popular Culture (2012) and The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Literary Studies (2015).

Reviews

[Sasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though reading some of these essays was like slogging through molasses (literary universalism and cognitive cultural hegemony come to mind), most of them were extremely thought provoking and gave me more of a sense of the potential of intertwining scientific and literary studies.

[William Adams · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cognitive Cultural Studies defines an approach to literary criticism, and more broadly, cultural criticism. According to Editor Zunshine, the strategy is to encompass other approaches to cultural criticism, such as gender studies, feminism, Marxism, postcolonialism, poststructuralism, performance theory, psychoanalysis, ethnic studies, rhetoric, ecocriticism, and body theory, to name just a few extant approaches.

Cultural studies is an established academic discipline practiced mainly in departments of English. It analyzes some aspect of a culture through a particular lens of assumptions, usually to focus on the political nature of cultural processes, revealing implicit power relationships. The scope includes current events and history, philosophy, theater, film, art, and especially, literature. The fourteen chapters in this scholarly volume focus mostly on literary criticism. The chapters are written by scholars in subfields of cultural studies (none of them psychologists).

The thrust of this book is that a grounding in cognitive science is the best, most inclusive point of view for practicing cultural criticism. Since all cultural processes are, after all, products of the human mind, then, the claim is, there is no better strategy than to adopt principles of cognitive science for doing cultural analysis. Therefore, a cognitive approach to cultural criticism automatically includes all other kinds of criticism. By invoking supervenience, practitioners of cognitive cultural studies audaciously claim not just a niche, but all the critical turf for themselves in a bloodless coup d'etat.

Reading between the lines, it seems one driver of the project is to find an objective, non-idiosyncratic, non-arbitrary basis from which to conduct cultural criticism. Most literary criticism is simply personal opinion of little general interest. The field as a whole is therefore unprincipled, based only on tradition, opinion and preference. It generates no actual knowledge, is incapable of progress, and its practitioners are no more than rhetoricians (not that that’s a bad thing to be). So what is at stake in this project seems to be the respectability and legitimacy of the field of cultural studies.

One author describes a way forward. In her view the cave paintings at Lascaux were designed to ward off evil spirits. They therefore had an instrumental role in a material and social culture. Her explanation appeals to the neurobiological modularity of sensory systems. Creativity arises when distinct mental modules are incomplete, overlapping, sometimes contradictory. The artist bridges those gaps by producing a cultural artifact, such as the cave paintings. That's not just an opinion, but a conclusion founded on a firm, factual, material basis. Or is it? I am not aware of any evidence that supports her view. No scientific evidence is cited.

Nevertheless, I note that this same author goes on to give a very insightful analysis of Raphael’s painting, "The Transfiguration." The analysis has nothing to do with cognitive science, but it is a terrific criticism. That phenomenon occurs several times in the book. David Herman, in his chapter, “Narrative theory after the second cognitive revolution,” gives a revelatory analysis of Hemingway’s short story, “Hills Like White Elephants,” though no important principle of cognitive science is brought to bear.

The authors seem unified in their belief that science, and only science, and in this case cognitive science, can provide a non-relativistic, non-arbitrary departure for cultural studies. They should say, by their own principles, that science is just another thread of cultural conversation, like art or politics, and has no privileged access to truth. But the promoters of cognitive cultural studies turn a blind eye to that contradiction so they can feel like they have a solid place to stand.

Despite its flaws, this book is an interesting exploration of the relationship between human cognition and cultural criticism, that can enrich scholars in both cultural studies and cognitive psychology.

[Craig McConnell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a well organized collection of thoughtful essays, and Zunshine's editorial introduction is extremely well done. My third read in "cognitive cultural studies" in not many more days (Why We Read Fiction, Strange Concepts) - I'm just not as bowled over by the approach as these writers. It reminds me of recent work in "evolutionary psychology" - a fair bit of it is compelling, but beyond the first few efforts it starts drifting into one pile that reinvents the wheel, one pile that is self-evident given the initial works, and a third pile that is so unfalsifiably circular that it tries my patience.

I'm glad I read this; I'm a bit disappointed (though not that surprised) that diminishing returns are already a concern.

[Erica · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's possible you will buy this book for me.