| Description |
1 online resource (249 pages). |
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text rdacontent |
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computer rdamedia |
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online resource rdacarrier |
| Series |
Cognitive approaches to literature and culture series.
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| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Contents |
Machine generated contents note: Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Literature, Emotion, and the Cosmopolitan Imagination -- 1. Empathetic Cosmopolitanism: Kay Boyle and the Precariousness of Human Rights -- 2. Sentimental Cosmopolitanism: The Transcultural Feelings of Pearl S. Buck -- 3. Cosmopolitan Sensitivities: Bystander Guilt and Interracial Solidarity in the Work of William Gardner Smith -- 4. Cosmopolitan Contradictions: Fear, Anger, and the Transgressive Heroes of Richard Wright -- 5. The Limits of Cosmopolitanism: Disgust and Intercultural Horror in the Fiction of Paul Bowles -- Conclusion: (Eco-)Cosmopolitan Feelings? -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index. |
| Summary |
"The book explores the role of empathy and emotion in the emergence of cosmopolitan imaginations through the works of a diverse set of American writers who during World War II and the early Cold War period lived in Europe, Asia, and Africa. It draws on theories of emotion and literary imagination from cognitive psychology, philosophy, and cognitive literary studies to offer a new perspective on the affective and imaginative underpinnings of critical and reflexive cosmopolitanism. It argues that our emotional engagements with others -- real and imagined -- are crucially important for the development of cosmopolitan imaginations. The book concentrates on specifically American cosmopolitan imaginations in the mid-twentieth century, focusing on a core of transnational writers who, for various reasons, had highly conflicted relationships with the American nation: Kay Boyle, Pearl S. Buck, Richard Wright, William Gardner Smith, and Paul Bowles. Their literary works are emotionally powerful indictments of institutionalized racism and national violence inside and outside of the United States; at the same time, they testify to the complex cosmopolitan identities of their authors. Reading these texts as affective cosmopolitan critiques, the book works out important and complex role played by imaginative and emotional engagements in the development of solidarities that go beyond self, family, community, and nation. Reading transnational American literature from a cognitive perspective, the book adds a new dimension to recent work in American literary history that seeks to reconceptualize U.S. literary and cultural production in its global context. At the same time, it also widens and deepens the array of literature available to researchers in cognitive literary studies" -- Provided by publisher. |
| Note |
Description based on print version record. |
| Local Note |
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest, 2015. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest affiliated libraries. |
| Subject |
American fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism.
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Cosmopolitanism in literature.
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Empathy in literature.
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Cognition in literature.
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Human rights in literature.
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Transnationalism in literature.
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Expatriate authors -- Psychology.
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Expatriate authors -- History.
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Authors, American -- 20th century -- Political and social views.
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| Added Title |
Literature, emotion, and the transnational imagination |
| Related To |
Print version: Weik von Mossner, Alexa. Cosmopolitan minds : literature, emotion, and the transnational imagination. Austin : University of Texas Press, 2014 x, 236 ; 24 cm Cognitive approaches to literature and culture series 9780292739086 (DLC)10888204 |
| ISBN |
9780292739086 (hardback) |
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9780292757646 (e-book) |
| OCLC # |
EBC3443746 |
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