Main description:

Stories can inspire love, anger, fear and nostalgia - but what is going on in our brains when this happens? And how do our minds conjure up worlds and characters from the words we read on the page?

Rapid advances in the scientific understanding of the brain have cast new light on how we engage with literature. This book - collaboratively written by an experienced neuroscientist and literary critic and writer - explores these new insights. Key concepts in neuroscience are first introduced for non-specialists and a range of literary texts by writers such as Ian McEwan, Jim Crace and E.L. Doctorow are read in light of the latest scientific thought on the workings of the mind and brain. Brain, Mind, and the Narrative Imagination demonstrates how literature taps into deep structures of memory and emotion that lie at the heart of our humanity. It will be of interest to readers of all sorts and students from both the humanities and the sciences.

Contents:

List of Figures

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction Back to the Future

PART I: Motivations to Explore Our Storied Mind

Chapter 1 The Scheherazade Syndrome

Chapter 2 Orchestrating the Imagination

PART II: Into the Neural Terrain

Chapter 3 Brain and Behavior

Chapter 4 Deep Substrates of Narrative Imagination

PART III: The Journey from Words to Narratives

Chapter 5 Compelled by Words

Chapter 6 The Cognitive Habitat of Narratives

PART IV: Converging Paths?

Chapter 7 Affective Cognition and Sociality

Chapter 8 The Feeling of What Happened

Chapter 9 Memory, Imagination, Self

Chapter 10 The via dolorosa of the Self

Afterword

References Cited

Index