Russian Literature and Cognitive Science

"In Russian Literature and Cognitive Science, Tom Dolack marshals old hands and new faces to show the many ways the new sciences of the mind can illuminate from unexpected angles the incomparable treasury of Russian literature from Pushkin to the present."

-- Brian Boyd, University of Auckland

“Science (including cognitive science) tends to isolate, quantify, narrow down a problem and then generalize on it; the literary humanities has conventionally pursued the very different goals of local context, personal depth, and idiosyncrasy. Each type of knowledge has its own precision, its own dynamic. In this rich and strenuously multidisciplinary collection of essays, Tom Dolack would bring the two together. From Pushkin through evolutionary biology to autism in Nabokov, mass shooters as Underground Men, and metaphor in the interactive speech genres of today’s online sites, the reader is urged to welcome as many different approaches to knowing as the brain can bear. Whether or not literary (or virtual) characters have minds—and the verdict on that is still out—the mix in this book of what can be cognitively measured and what cannot will challenge and delight even those who feel wholly at home in Russian literary worlds.”

-- Caryl Emerson, Princeton University

"It seems only natural that the literary tradition of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Pushkin should invite interpretation using the most sophisticated current psychological research. But few of us who are not in Slavic studies are familiar with the breadth and variety of recent cognitive scientific work on Russian literature. With its diversity of approaches, and an accessible introduction mapping that diversity, this collection offers readers a way of entering into to the complex, cognitive world of this major literary tradition."