What is it about?
Author Representations in Literary Reading investigates the role of the author in the mind of the reader. It is the first book-length empirical study on generated author inferences by readers of literature. It bridges the gap between theories which hold that the author is irrelevant and those that give him prominence. By combining insights and methods from both cognitive psychology and literary theory, this book contributes to a better understanding of how readers process literary texts and what role their assumptions about an author play. A series of experiments demonstrate that readers generate author inferences during the process of reading, which they use to create an image of the text’s author. The findings suggest that interpretations about the author play a pivotal role in the literary reading process. This book is relevant to scholars and students in all areas of the cognitive sciences, including literary studies and psychology.
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Why is it important?
It is the first book-length empirical study on generated author inferences by readers of literature. It bridges the gap between theories which hold that the author is irrelevant and those that give him prominence. “Quite simply, this book is the very best piece of combined empirical and theoretical work ever done on the question of authorship in literary reading.” — Raymond Gibbs, University of California, Santa Cruz
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This page is a summary of: Author Representations in Literary Reading, January 2012, John Benjamins,
DOI: 10.1075/lal.11.
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Resources
What psycholinguistic studies ignore about literary experience
Multiple decades of psycholinguistic research exploring people’s reading of different types of language has delivered much improved understanding of textual comprehension experience. Psycholinguistic studies have typically focused on a few cognitive and linguistic processes presumed to be central in reading comprehension of language, but this emphasis has omitted other processes and products readers commonly experience in their imaginative, aesthetic encounters with literature. Our paper describes some of the limitations of psycholinguistics for explaining people’s literary experiences. Nonetheless, we argue that recent research on embodied simulation processes may help close the gap between psycholinguistics, with its emphasis on generic processes of non-literary language use, and studies associated with the scientific study of literature with their focus on phenomenological, lived reactions to literary texts.
Book review
Book Review: Eefje Claassen, Author Representation in Literary Reading by Jennifer Sanchez-Davies
Inferences during Reading
Edited by Edward J. O'Brien, University of New Hampshire , Anne E. Cook, University of Utah , Robert F. Lorch, Jr, University of Kentucky
Biblical Exegesis without Authorial Intention? Interdisciplinary Approaches to Authorship and Meaning
In Biblical Exegesis without Authorial Intention? Interdisciplinary Approaches to Authorship and Meaning, Clarissa Breu offers interdisciplinary contributions to the question of the author in biblical interpretation with a focus on “death of the author” theory. The wide range of approaches represented in the volume comprises mostly postmodern theory (e. g. Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Paul de Man, Julia Kristeva and Gilles Deleuze), but also the implied author and intentio operis. Furthermore, psychology, choreography, reader-response theories and anthropological studies are reflected. Inasmuch as the contributions demonstrate that biblical studies could utilize significantly more differentiated views on the author than are predominantly presumed within the discipline, it is an invitation to question the importance and place attributed to the author.
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