Russian Literature and Cognitive Science

Edited by Tom Dolack - Contributions by Tom Dolack; Denis Akhapkin; David Bethea; Ekaterina Chelpanova; Brett Cooke; David S. Danaher; Kelly Knickmeier Cummings; Katherina B. Kokinova; Anna A. Lazareva; Julia Lerner; Irina Meier; Sarah B. Mohler; Michał Mrugalski; Anna Novikova and Angelina Rubina

Russian Literature and Cognitive Science applies the newest insights from cognitive psychology to the study of Russian literature. Chapters focus on writers and cultural figures from the Golden to the Internet Age including: Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Sologub, Bely, Akhmatova, Nabokov, Baranskaya, and contemporary online discourse. The authors draw on a wide array of cognitively-informed fields within psychology and related disciplines and approaches such as social psychology, visual processing, conceptual blending, cognitive narratology, the study of autism, cognitive approaches to creativity, the medical humanities, reader reception theory, cognitive anthropology, psychopathology, psychoanalysis, Theory of Mind, visual processing, embodied cognition, and predictive processing. This volume demonstrates how useful a tool cognitive science is for the analysis of literary texts.

Lexington Books

Pages: 308 • Trim: 6¼ x 9⅜

978-1-66694-169-2 • Hardback • November 2024 • $130.00 • (£100.00)

978-1-66694-170-8 • eBook • November 2024 • $50.00 • (£38.00)

Series: Crosscurrents: Russia's Literature in Context

Subjects: Literary Criticism / Russian & Former Soviet Union, Psychology / Social Psychology, Psychology / Cognitive Neuroscience & Cognitive Neuropsychology

Russian Literature and Cognitive Science

Hardback

eBook

Summary

Russian Literature and Cognitive Science applies the newest insights from cognitive psychology to the study of Russian literature. Chapters focus on writers and cultural figures from the Golden to the Internet Age including: Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Sologub, Bely, Akhmatova, Nabokov, Baranskaya, and contemporary online discourse. The authors draw on a wide array of cognitively-informed fields within psychology and related disciplines and approaches such as social psychology, visual processing, conceptual blending, cognitive narratology, the study of autism, cognitive approaches to creativity, the medical humanities, reader reception theory, cognitive anthropology, psychopathology, psychoanalysis, Theory of Mind, visual processing, embodied cognition, and predictive processing. This volume demonstrates how useful a tool cognitive science is for the analysis of literary texts.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 308 • Trim: 6¼ x 9⅜

978-1-66694-169-2 • Hardback • November 2024 • $130.00 • (£100.00)

978-1-66694-170-8 • eBook • November 2024 • $50.00 • (£38.00)

Series: Crosscurrents: Russia's Literature in Context

Subjects: Literary Criticism / Russian & Former Soviet Union, Psychology / Social Psychology, Psychology / Cognitive Neuroscience & Cognitive Neuropsychology

Author

Tom Dolack is senior professor of the Practice of Russian at Wheaton College.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction Tom Dolack
Chapter 1: Pushkin's “The Stationmaster”: Morality Meets Sexual Selection David Bethea
Chapter 2: Flow and Selfhood in Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina: A Case Study of the Mowing Scene David S. Danaher
Chapter 3: Facial Imagery, Reader Visualization, and the Visual Ethics of War and Peace Sarah B. Mohler
Chapter 4: A Multilevel Cognitive Approach to Pushkin Tom Dolack
Chapter 5: Staying Imperturbable in the Face of Fate: Alexander Pushkin’s Gothic Stories Conveying the Code of Honor in the Face of the Supernatural Ekaterina Chelpanova
Chapter 6: (Un)Reading and the “Gappiness” of Context: Towards a New Cognitive Reception Theory Katherina B. Kokinova
Chapter 7: Re-Visioning Despair: The Medical Gaze in Sologub’s The Petty Demon Kelly Knickmeier Cummings
Chapter 8: Autism in Nabokov’s The Defense Brett Cooke
Chapter 9: Provocation and Pre-Diction: Terrorist Realism as a Narrative Mode in the Russian Imperium’s Prose 1862-1914 (Particularly in Andrei Bely’s Petersburg, 1913) Michał Mrugalski
Chapter 10: Mass Shooters as Underground Men of the 21st Century Irina Meier
Chapter 11: Russian Cognitive Approaches for Studying Genres of Contemporary Electronic Communication: Interpreting “Sincere Conversations” in New Media Anna Novikova and Julia Lerner
Chapter 12: Dream (Re)Interpretation: Metaphors and Story Schemas in Meaning Creation Anna A. Lazareva
Chapter 13: Intersections between Language, Social Norms, and Individual Cognition in Natalya Baranskaya’s A Week like Any Other Angelina Rubina
Chapter 14: Cognitive Aspects of Deixis and Semantic Poetics of Anna Akhmatova and Joseph Brodsky Denis Akhapkin
About the Contributors

Reviews

"In Russian Literature and Cognitive Science, Tom Dolack marshals old hands and new faces to show the many ways the new sciences of the mind can illuminate from unexpected angles the incomparable treasury of Russian literature from Pushkin to the present."

— Brian Boyd, University of Auckland

“Science (including cognitive science) tends to isolate, quantify, narrow down a problem and then generalize on it; the literary humanities has conventionally pursued the very different goals of local context, personal depth, and idiosyncrasy. Each type of knowledge has its own precision, its own dynamic. In this rich and strenuously multidisciplinary collection of essays, Tom Dolack would bring the two together. From Pushkin through evolutionary biology to autism in Nabokov, mass shooters as Underground Men, and metaphor in the interactive speech genres of today’s online sites, the reader is urged to welcome as many different approaches to knowing as the brain can bear. Whether or not literary (or virtual) characters have minds—and the verdict on that is still out—the mix in this book of what can be cognitively measured and what cannot will challenge and delight even those who feel wholly at home in Russian literary worlds.”

— Caryl Emerson, Princeton University

"It seems only natural that the literary tradition of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Pushkin should invite interpretation using the most sophisticated current psychological research. But few of us who are not in Slavic studies are familiar with the breadth and variety of recent cognitive scientific work on Russian literature. With its diversity of approaches, and an accessible introduction mapping that diversity, this collection offers readers a way of entering into to the complex, cognitive world of this major literary tradition."

— Patrick Colm Hogan, University of Connecticut

"This book is a groundbreaking exploration of Russian literature and culture through a cognitive lens, underscoring the vitality and relevance of cognitive literary studies in contemporary academic discourse. This seminal work encompasses a wide array of approaches—such as evolutionary literary studies, cognitive narratology, and cognitive poetics, among others—showcasing the field’s vast scope and interdisciplinary nature."

— Isabel Jaén, Portland State University, and Julien Simon, Indiana University East