Our enjoyment of literature and fiction is rooted in theory of mind: the cognitive ability to attribute mental states (intentions, desires, thoughts, emotions) to others and make sense of their ...

It has held sway in the humanities for nearly four decades, surviving even the great culture wars. But it is being used in surprising ways. Either literary theory is dead, or it’s invincible. It all ...

One of the momentous developments in criticism in the past two decades has been the revival of the historical method as a way of studying literature, the arts, and the world of ideas. Scholars who ...

This essay investigates the phenomenon of “embedded” mental states in fiction (i.e., a mental state within a mental state within yet another mental state, as in, “Mrs. Banks wished that Mary Poppins ...

Finally, the New York Times has caught up with the next dubious trend in English literature departments: neuroscience. As Patricia Cohen writes, "Zealous enthusiasm for the politically charged and ...

Edris Ranji has translated the book and Qoqnoos Publishing House has brought it out in 520 pages, IRNA reported. Do the various forms of literary theory - deconstruction, Marxism, new historicism, ...

Nazia Manzoor: When I was in my first year of college, I was pursuing science because that is what is expected if you take your academics seriously. However, I had soon reached a stage where I was ...

Literature depends on literacy, a very recent acquisition in human evolutionary history--so recent that it cannot plausibly be considered an adaptation. But people in all non-literate cultures use ...