Paula Leverage – författare

Narrative, Cognition, and Community: The Human Reader explores the relationship between literature, cognition, and lived experience, asking why we read and what happens when we do. Bringing literary studies into dialogue with cognitive science, psychology, philosophy, and neuroscience, it shows how narrative both shapes and is shaped by memory, perception, emotion, embodiment, and the ways we make sense of ourselves and others.The volume foregrounds the human reader in an age of machine-learning systems trained on human narratives, inviting reflection on what remains distinctive about human acts of reading and interpretation. Through discussions of literature alongside trauma, legal testimony, embodied health, and twelve-step recovery programmes, it demonstrates that storytelling is central not only to aesthetic experience but also to everyday social life.As a foundational work in the field of Neurohumanities exploring narrative's role in human engagement with the world, the book argues that storytelling is a fundamental cognitive and social practice, one that assumes renewed significance in the age of artificial intelligence.

Theory of Mind is what enables us to 'put ourselves in another's shoes'. It is mindreading, empathy, creative imagination of another's perspective: in short, it is simultaneously a highly sophisticated ability and a very basic necessity for human communication. Theory of Mind is central to such commercial endeavors as market research and product development, but it is also just as important in maintaining human relations over a cup of coffee. Not surprisingly, it is a critical tool in reading and understanding literature. Furthermore, it is becoming increasingly apparent that reading literature also hones these critical mindreading skills. Theory of Mind and Literature is a collection of nineteen essays by prominent scholars (linguists, cognitive scientists, and philosophers) working in the cutting-edge field of cognitive literary studies, which explores how we use Theory of Mind in reading and understanding literature. The essays range widely across national literatures (Spanish, French, German, British, and American), genres (theatre, poetry, science fiction, and novels), and historical periods (from the Middle Ages to the functional brain imaging of the twenty-first century), illuminating the central, enduring importance of Theory of Mind to our human condition.

Theory of Mind is what enables us to "put ourselves in another''s shoes." It is mindreading, empathy, creative imagination of another''s perspective: in short, it is simultaneously a highly sophisticated ability and a very basic necessity for human communication. Theory of Mind is central to such commercial endeavors as market research and product development, but it is also just as important in maintaining human relations over a cup of coffee. Not surprisingly, it is a critical tool in reading and understanding literature, which abounds with characters, situations, and "other people''s shoes." Furthermore, it is becoming increasingly apparent that reading literature also hones these critical mindreading skills. Theory of Mind and Literature is a collection of nineteen essays by prominent scholars (linguists, cognitive scientists, and philosophers) working in the cutting-edge field of cognitive literary studies, which explores how we use Theory of Mind in reading and understanding literature.

Theory of Mind is what enables us to "put ourselves in another''s shoes." It is mindreading, empathy, creative imagination of another''s perspective: in short, it is simultaneously a highly sophisticated ability and a very basic necessity for human communication. Theory of Mind is central to such commercial endeavors as market research and product development, but it is also just as important in maintaining human relations over a cup of coffee. Not surprisingly, it is a critical tool in reading and understanding literature, which abounds with characters, situations, and "other people''s shoes." Furthermore, it is becoming increasingly apparent that reading literature also hones these critical mindreading skills. Theory of Mind and Literature is a collection of nineteen essays by prominent scholars (linguists, cognitive scientists, and philosophers) working in the cutting-edge field of cognitive literary studies, which explores how we use Theory of Mind in reading and understanding literature.