Negative Empathy in Literature and the Arts

Rezensionen / Stimmen

This timely contribution to narrative aesthetics revives and critically builds out from an underutilized aesthetic concept with theoretical nuance and creativity.

-Sianne Ngai, George M. Pullman Distinguished Service Professor of English, University of Chicago, USA

Ercolino and Fusillo take Lipps' notion of negative empathy and do some serious reconceptualizing aimed at making it a key item in the aesthetician's toolbox. The result is an illuminating, often disturbing bringing together of works in many media: from Medea to Macbeth (opera), from Caravaggio to Kiefer.

-Greg Currie, Emeritus Professor, University of York, UK

Ercolino and Fusillo cast a great deal of light on the imaginative empathy that, despite our moral distance, we extend to objectionable characters in literature and the arts. Original, analytically acute, and culturally rich.

-Garry L. Hagberg, author of Living in Words: Literature, Autobiographical Language, and the Composition of Selfhood

Stefano Ercolino and Massimo Fusillo's study explores the dark side of empathetic responses to fiction, offering striking insights into its cognitive, ethical, and affective potential. Meticulously researched and supported by a broad range of close readings from multiple media, this book represents a major contribution to debates on narrative empathy.

-Marco Caracciolo, Associate Professor of English and Literary Theory, Ghent University, Belgium

Macbeth, Caravaggio, Marina Abramovic and Walter White - This book traces "negative empathy" from the short duration of an image, a theatre play, and a performance to the long duration of novels and TV series, introducing empathy's conflicted sibling and demonstrating how it provokes engagement and reflective distance in audiences.

-Karin Kukkonen, Professor, University of Oslo, Norway