Students will learn about the key concepts from direct 
instruction and primary documents in cognitive science. Also 
required will be readings that apply cognitive science concepts 
to literature (both theory and application of the theory to 
literary texts).
1. Students will demonstrate comprehension of key concepts in
cognitive science.
2. Students will demonstrate comprehension of cognitive literary
theory.
3. Students will develop analytical thinking skills through the
application of these concepts to literary texts.
4. Students will demonstrate a mastery of this application by
writing argumentative essays.
5. Students will further develop key writing skills such as 
organization, command of language, and persuasion.
6. Students will understand that literary language is merely 
an extension of the toolkit used in everyday language, that 
poetic language is central to language behavior, and that 
metaphor is fundamental to human understanding.
7. Students will understand that reading a text is a 
triangulation of minds and that a better understanding of 
cognitive processes can help to elucidate the behaviors of 
characters, authors, and readers.

Possible textbook:
Cognitive Literary Studies: Current Themes and New Directions
(eds. Jaen and Simon)
Note: What follows is a list of possibilities and is not meant to
be indicative of what the course might cover. The class will 
include direct explanatory instruction of the concepts and will 
probably use a textbook as its main resource. Immediately 
following is a list of possible topics.  
After that is a list of possible texts for supplemental 
readings. For the books listed, students will only be expected 
to read key excerpts and not the complete text.
Possible topics:
Joint attention and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”
Theory of mind and “Good Country People”
Cognitive empathy and “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”
Conceptual metaphor theory and poetry (specifically Emily
Dickinson and “Because I Could Not Stop for Death")
Schema theory and scripts
Blending theory and Henry IV, Part I
Prototype theory and the bildungsroman
Creativity studies and authorship (cognitive case study method)
Image schema theory and imagery

Possible readings: 
Cognitive Literary Theory
Selections from: 
More Than Cool Reason (Lakoff and Turner)
The Way We Think (Fauconnier and Turner)
Why We Read Fiction (Zunshine)
Fictional Minds (Palmer)
Cognitive Science, Literature, and the Arts (Hogan)
The Poetics of Mind: Figurative Thought, Language, and 
Understanding (Gibbs)
Reading Minds: The Study of English in the Age of Cognitive
Science (Turner)
The Literary Mind (Turner)

Theory Application
Much of the reading in theory application will come from
published journal articles, but there are also texts from which 
selections might be drawn such as Shakespeare’s Brain (Crane) 
and The Brain of Robert Frost (Holland).