The Systemic And Empirical Approach To Literature And Culture As Theory And Application

The systemic and empirical approach to literature and culture as theory and application

Comparative Literature: Theory, Method, Application

This book serves several purposes, all very much needed in today's embattled situation of the humanities and the study of literature. First, in Chapter One, the author proposes that the discipline of Comparative Literature is a most advantageous approach for the study of literature and culture as it is a priori a discipline of cross-disciplinarity and of international dimensions. After a Manifesto for a New Comparative Literature, he proceeds to offer several related theoretical frameworks as a composite method for the study of literature and culture he designates and explicates as the systemic and empirical approach. Following the introduction of the proposed New Comparative Literature, the author applies his method to a wide variety of literary and cultural areas of inquiry such as Literature and Cultural Participation where he discusses several aspects of reading and readership (Chapter Two), Comparative Literature as/and Interdisciplinarity (Chapter Three) where he deals with theory and application for film and literature and medicine and literature, Cultures, Peripheralities, and Comparative Literature (Chapter Four) where he proposes a theoretical designation he terms inbetween peripherality for the study of East Central European literatures and cultures as well as ethnic minority writing, Women's Literature and Men Writing about Women (Chapter Five) where he analyses texts written by women and texts about women written by men in the theoretical context of Ethical Constructivism, The Study of Translation and Comparative Literature (Chapter Six) where after a theoretical introduction he presents a new version of Anton Popovic's dictionary for literary translation as a taxonomy for the study of translation, and The Study of Literature and the Electronic Age (Chapter Seven), where he discusses the impact of new technologies on the study of literature and culture. The analyses in their various applications of the proposed New Comparative Literature involve modern and contemporary authors and their works such as Dorothy Richardson, Margit Kaffka, Mircea Cartarescu, Robert Musil, Alfred Döblin, Hermann Hesse, Péter Esterházy, Dezsö Kosztolányi, Michael Ondaatje, Endre Kukorelly, Else Seel, and others.

The Psychology and Sociology of Literature

"The Psychology and Sociology of Literature" is a collection of 25 chapters on literature by some of the leading psychologists, sociologists, and literary scholars in the field of the empirical study of literature. Contributors include Ziva Ben-Porat, Gerry Cupchik, Art Graesser, Rachel Giora, Norbert Groeben, Colin Martindale, David Miall, Willie van Peer, Kees van Rees, Siegfried Schmidt, Hugo Verdaasdonk, and Rolf Zwaan. Topics include literature and the reading process; the role of poetic language, metaphor, and irony; cathartic and Freudian effects; literature and creativity; the career of the literary author; literature and culture; literature and multicultural society, literature and the mass media; literature and the internet; and literature and history. An introduction by the editors situates the empirical study of literature within an academic context.The chapters are all invited and refereed contributions, collected to honor the scholarship and retirement of professor Elrud Ibsch, of the Free University of Amsterdam. Together they represent the state of the art in the empirical study of literature, a movement in literary studies which aims to produce reliable and valid scientific knowledge about literature as a means of verbal communication in its cultural context. Elrud Ibsch was one of the pioneers in Europe to promote this approach to literature some 25 years ago, and this volume takes stock of what has happened since."The Psychology and Sociology of Literature" presents an invaluable overview of the results, promises, gaps, and needs of the empirical study of literature. It addresses social scientists as well as scholars in the humanities who are interested in literature as discourse.