Empathy and the Strangeness of Fiction
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Empathy
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Language_English
mind-reading
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realism
self-reflexivity
softlaunch
strangeness
stranger
Theory of Mind
Product details
- ISBN 9781474463041
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 03 Mar 2022
- Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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This book takes its point of departure in recent psychological findings which suggest that reading fiction cultivates empathy, including Theory of Mind. Scott draws on literary theory and close readings to argue that engagement with fictional stories also teaches us to resist uncritical forms of empathy and reminds us of the limitations of our ability to understand other people. The book treats figures of the stranger in Balzac's La Fille aux yeux d'or, Stendhal's Le Rouge et le Noir and Sand's Indiana as emblematic of the strangeness of narrative fiction, which both draws us in and keeps us at a distance.
Maria C. Scott is Associate Professor of French Literature and Thought at the University of Exeter. She has published two monographs, Baudelaire’s ‘Le Spleen de Paris’: Shifting Perspectives (Ashgate,2005) and Stendhal’s Less-Loved Heroines: Fiction, Freedom, and the Female (Legenda,2013). The latter was published in French translation as Stendhal, la liberté et les héroïnes mal aimées (Classiques Garnier, 2015).The author is generally interested in the identificatory dynamics and blind spots that can affect literary interpretation.
