Zunshine Getting Inside Your Head

What Cognitive Science Can Tell Us about Popular Culture
Erscheinungsjahr 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4214-0875-0
Verlag: Johns Hopkins University Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 0 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm

Using the psychological concept called theory of mind, Lisa Zunshine explores the appeal of movies, novels, paintings, musicals, and reality television.

Winner of the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title of the Choice ACRL

We live in other people's heads: avidly, reluctantly, consciously, unaware, mistakenly, and inescapably. Our social life is a constant negotiation among what we think we know about each other's thoughts and feelings, what we want each other to think we know, and what we would dearly love to know but don't.

Cognitive scientists have a special term for the evolved cognitive adaptation that makes us attribute mental states to other people through observation of their body language; they call it theory of mind. Getting Inside Your Head uses research in theory of mind to look at movies, musicals, novels, classic Chinese opera, stand-up comedy, mock-documentaries, photography, and reality television. It follows Pride and Prejudice’s Mr. Darcy as he tries to conceal his anger, Tyler Durden as he lectures a stranger at gunpoint in Fight Club, and Ingrid Bergman as she fakes interest in horse races in Notorious.

This engaging book exemplifies the new interdisciplinary field of cognitive cultural studies, demonstrating that collaboration between cognitive science and cultural studies is both exciting and productive.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Zunshine, Lisa

Fachgebiete

• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften Interdisziplinär Neurowissenschaften, Kognitionswissenschaft
• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Allgemeine Psychologie Kognitionspsychologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Sprachwissenschaften Semiotik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations
Preface: Fantasies of Access
1. Culture of Greedy Mind Readers
2. I Know What You're Thinking, Mr. Darcy!
3. Sadistic Benefactors
4. Theaters, Hippodromes, and Other Mousetraps
5. Movies: The Power of Restraint
6. Mockumentaries, Photography, and Stand-Up Comedy: Upping the Agony
7. Reality TV: Humiliation in Real Time
8. Musicals (Particularly around 11 pm)
9. Painting Feelings
10. Painting Mysteries
Coda
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Zunshine, Lisa
Lisa Zunshine is Bush-Holbrook Professor of English at the University of Kentucky, Lexington. She is the author and editor of ten books, including Strange Concepts and the Stories They Make Possible: Cognition, Culture, Narrative and Introduction to Cognitive Cultural Studies, both also published by Johns Hopkins. Her work has been featured in the New York Times and the Chronicle of Higher Education, and she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2008.