Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Empathy and the Strangeness of Fiction: Readings in French Realism

Empathy and the Strangeness of Fiction: Readings in French Realism

Scott, Maria C.

Hardcover

Literary Criticism

ISBN10: 1474463037
ISBN13: 9781474463034
Publisher: Edinburgh Univ Pr
Published: Apr 28 2020
Pages: 240
Weight: 1.10
Height: 0.70 Width: 6.30 Depth: 9.20
Language: English

Explores how and why narrative fiction engages empathy, including Theory of Mind
Offers a broad overview of current scientific work on the effects of fiction-reading on empathy, including Theory of MindProvides an original intervention in the field of literary theory, centring on the reflexive properties of the fictional strangerIncludes stand-alone close readings of three novels by important French authors

This book studies recent psychological findings which suggest that reading fiction cultivates empathy, encouraging us to be critically reflective, suspicious readers as well as participatory, 'naïve' readers. 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, both drawing us in and keeping us at a distance.

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