Bodies, Spaces, and Cultural Models: On Bridging the Gap between Culture and Cognition

IF 0.6 0 LITERARY THEORY & CRITICISM
M. Hartner
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But scholars have also begun to address another lacuna in contemporary research that may prove to be of equal or even more profound consequence: the lack of a solid and widely accepted conceptual and analytical bridge between cognitive approaches and the wide field of cultural studies. It is a well-known fact that the study of culture in its many theoretical guises has taken a lead role in philology departments around the globe. Though not every scholar welcomes this development, it would certainly be unwise to ignore the general impact of cultural studies on philology. For this reason, my paper argues that CLS not only needs to engage in a productive interdisciplinary dialogue between literary scholars and cognitive scientists but it also needs to incorporate cultural studies into this dialogue. In other words, an important challenge lies in making cognitive approaches relevant for cultural analysis. This paper engages with current attempts to face this challenge. It provides a survey of approaches that aim to build a conceptual bridge between culture and cognition and thus take a step towards extending cognitive approaches into the field of cultural studies. For this purpose, I adopt the distinction between so-called ›first‹ and ›second generation‹ approaches in order to group this research heuristically into two academic camps: (1) approaches that emphatically foreground so-called second generation cognitive science as their prime source of inspiration, i.e. approaches that engage with enactive, embedded, extended, and embodied aspects of cognition; and (2) studies which do not explicitly situate themselves within this paradigm and rather seek innovation by turning to more ›classical‹, foundational ›first generation‹ concepts of mental representation, information- and text processing. By discussing examples from both lines of research, including work by Kukkonen/Caracciolo (2014), Strasen (2013), Sommer (2013), and Hartner/Schneider (2015), my survey attempts to provide an impression of the wealth of creative thinking currently at work in CLS. In this context, the paper discusses some of the major challenges cognitive approaches are facing today; it traces a selection of current developments in the field, including work on the concept of ›cultural models‹, the notion of the ›intercultural mind‹, and the attempt to programmatically ground conceptualizations of cognition in our bodily interactions with culture and the environment. All in all, I argue that despite the efforts towards a systematic cognitive investigation of culture sketched in this survey, the project of cognitive cultural studies in general is still in its infancy. 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引用次数: 3

Abstract

Abstract Over the past two decades cognitive literary studies (CLS) has emerged as a new subfield of literary studies. Despite the success of cognitive theories in some areas of research such as in narratology, however, the impact of CLS on the academic discipline of literary and cultural studies as a whole has not been as profound as predicted. Major schools of research, e.g. postcolonial studies or gender studies, remain virtually untouched, and the vast majority of literary scholars are still sceptical or indifferent towards this area of research. Reasons for this scepticism include, for example, epistemological and methodological uncertainties concerning the interdisciplinary intersection of science and literature. But scholars have also begun to address another lacuna in contemporary research that may prove to be of equal or even more profound consequence: the lack of a solid and widely accepted conceptual and analytical bridge between cognitive approaches and the wide field of cultural studies. It is a well-known fact that the study of culture in its many theoretical guises has taken a lead role in philology departments around the globe. Though not every scholar welcomes this development, it would certainly be unwise to ignore the general impact of cultural studies on philology. For this reason, my paper argues that CLS not only needs to engage in a productive interdisciplinary dialogue between literary scholars and cognitive scientists but it also needs to incorporate cultural studies into this dialogue. In other words, an important challenge lies in making cognitive approaches relevant for cultural analysis. This paper engages with current attempts to face this challenge. It provides a survey of approaches that aim to build a conceptual bridge between culture and cognition and thus take a step towards extending cognitive approaches into the field of cultural studies. For this purpose, I adopt the distinction between so-called ›first‹ and ›second generation‹ approaches in order to group this research heuristically into two academic camps: (1) approaches that emphatically foreground so-called second generation cognitive science as their prime source of inspiration, i.e. approaches that engage with enactive, embedded, extended, and embodied aspects of cognition; and (2) studies which do not explicitly situate themselves within this paradigm and rather seek innovation by turning to more ›classical‹, foundational ›first generation‹ concepts of mental representation, information- and text processing. By discussing examples from both lines of research, including work by Kukkonen/Caracciolo (2014), Strasen (2013), Sommer (2013), and Hartner/Schneider (2015), my survey attempts to provide an impression of the wealth of creative thinking currently at work in CLS. In this context, the paper discusses some of the major challenges cognitive approaches are facing today; it traces a selection of current developments in the field, including work on the concept of ›cultural models‹, the notion of the ›intercultural mind‹, and the attempt to programmatically ground conceptualizations of cognition in our bodily interactions with culture and the environment. All in all, I argue that despite the efforts towards a systematic cognitive investigation of culture sketched in this survey, the project of cognitive cultural studies in general is still in its infancy. Its work is conducted by a comparatively small group of enthusiasts and constitutes a highly-specialized academic niche within a multitude of postclassical approaches to literature. Whether it will be possible to interest the much larger body of ›traditional‹ literary and cultural scholars in cognitive approaches, in my opinion, will to no small degree hinge on the field’s ability to move beyond abstract theoretical reflection. While there is obviously nothing intrinsically wrong with specialized fields of research beyond the mainstream, I believe that cognitive approaches have the potential to reach a wider audience. However, this may depend on the ability of CLS to develop concepts and methods capable of analysing concrete cultural phenomena in their social and historical context.
身体、空间与文化模式——关于弥合文化与认知之间的鸿沟
近二十年来,认知文学研究作为文学研究的一个新分支兴起。然而,尽管认知理论在叙事学等一些研究领域取得了成功,但从整体上看,认知理论对文学和文化研究学科的影响并不像预期的那样深刻。主要的研究流派,如后殖民研究或性别研究,几乎没有受到影响,绝大多数文学学者仍然对这一研究领域持怀疑态度或漠不关心。这种怀疑的原因包括,例如,关于科学和文学跨学科交叉的认识论和方法论的不确定性。但学者们也开始解决当代研究中的另一个空白,这个空白可能会产生同样甚至更深远的影响:在认知方法和广泛的文化研究领域之间缺乏一个坚实的、被广泛接受的概念和分析桥梁。这是一个众所周知的事实,文化的研究在其许多理论形式已经在全球文字学部门的领导作用。虽然不是每个学者都欢迎这种发展,但忽视文化研究对语言学的普遍影响肯定是不明智的。因此,我的论文认为,CLS不仅需要在文学学者和认知科学家之间进行富有成效的跨学科对话,而且还需要将文化研究纳入这种对话。换句话说,一个重要的挑战在于使认知方法与文化分析相关。本文探讨了当前应对这一挑战的尝试。它提供了旨在在文化和认知之间建立概念桥梁的方法的调查,从而朝着将认知方法扩展到文化研究领域迈出了一步。为此,我采用了所谓的“第一代”和“第二代”方法之间的区别,以便将这种研究启发式地分为两个学术阵营:(1)强调将所谓的“第二代”认知科学作为其主要灵感来源的方法,即与认知的活动、嵌入、扩展和具体化方面有关的方法;(2)研究没有明确地将自己置于这一范式中,而是通过转向更“经典”的、基础的“第一代”心理表征、信息和文本处理概念来寻求创新。通过讨论来自两个研究领域的例子,包括Kukkonen/Caracciolo (2014), Strasen (2013), Sommer(2013)和Hartner/Schneider(2015)的工作,我的调查试图提供目前在CLS工作中丰富的创造性思维的印象。在此背景下,本文讨论了当今认知方法面临的一些主要挑战;它追溯了该领域当前发展的一些选择,包括关于“文化模型”概念的工作,“跨文化思维”的概念,以及在我们与文化和环境的身体互动中以程序化的方式建立认知概念化的尝试。总而言之,我认为,尽管本调查概述了对文化进行系统认知调查的努力,但认知文化研究总体上仍处于起步阶段。它的工作是由一个相对较小的爱好者群体进行的,在众多的后古典文学方法中构成了一个高度专业化的学术利基。在我看来,是否有可能引起更大的传统文学和文化学者对认知方法的兴趣,在很大程度上取决于该领域超越抽象理论反思的能力。虽然超越主流的专业研究领域显然没有本质上的错误,但我相信认知方法有潜力吸引更广泛的受众。然而,这可能取决于CLS开发能够分析其社会和历史背景下具体文化现象的概念和方法的能力。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
Journal of Literary Theory
Journal of Literary Theory LITERARY THEORY & CRITICISM-
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