
Ethical Sense and Literary Significance
Deep Sociality and the Cultural Agency of Imaginative Discourse
Donald R. Wehrs(Author)
Routledge (Publisher)
1st Edition
Published on 31. July 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
248 pages
978-1-032-45000-1 (ISBN)
Description
This study blends together ethical philosophy, neurocognitive-evolutionary studies, and literary theory to explore how imaginative discourse addresses a distinctively human deep sociality, and by doing so helps shape cultural and literary history. Deep sociality, arising from an improbable evolutionary history, both entwines and leaves non-reconciled what is felt to be significant for us and what ethical sense seems to call us to acknowledge as significant, independent of ourselves.
Ethical Sense and Literary Significance connects literary and cultural history without reducing the literary to a mere expression of something else. It argues that affective differences between non-egocentric and egocentric registers of significance are integral to the bioculturally evolved deep sociality that verbal art addresses-often in unsettling and socially critical ways. Much imaginative discourse, in early societies as well as recent ones, brings ethical sense and literary significance together in ways that reveal their intricate but non-harmonized internal entwinement.
Drawing on contemporary scholarship in the humanities and sciences, Donald R. Wehrs explores the implications of interdisciplinary approaches to topics central to a wide range of fields beyond literary studies, including neuroscience, anthropology, phenomenological philosophy, comparative history, and social psychology.
Ethical Sense and Literary Significance connects literary and cultural history without reducing the literary to a mere expression of something else. It argues that affective differences between non-egocentric and egocentric registers of significance are integral to the bioculturally evolved deep sociality that verbal art addresses-often in unsettling and socially critical ways. Much imaginative discourse, in early societies as well as recent ones, brings ethical sense and literary significance together in ways that reveal their intricate but non-harmonized internal entwinement.
Drawing on contemporary scholarship in the humanities and sciences, Donald R. Wehrs explores the implications of interdisciplinary approaches to topics central to a wide range of fields beyond literary studies, including neuroscience, anthropology, phenomenological philosophy, comparative history, and social psychology.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Academic and Postgraduate
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
401 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-032-45000-1 (9781032450001)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
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Donald R. Wehrs
Ethical Sense and Literary Significance
Deep Sociality and the Cultural Agency of Imaginative Discourse
E-Book
07/2023
1st Edition
Routledge
€55.49
Available for download

Donald R. Wehrs
Ethical Sense and Literary Significance
Deep Sociality and the Cultural Agency of Imaginative Discourse
E-Book
07/2023
1st Edition
Routledge
€55.49
Available for download

Donald R. Wehrs
Ethical Sense and Literary Significance
Deep Sociality and the Cultural Agency of Imaginative Discourse
Book
07/2023
1st Edition
Routledge
€206.50
Shipment within 10-20 days
Person
Donald R. Wehrs is Hargis Professor of English Literature at Auburn University, USA. He is the editor or co-editor of five collections, most recently Cultural Memory: From the Sciences to the Humanities (Routledge, 2023), and author of three books on African fiction and over 40 scholarly publications.
Content
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Literary Signification and Biocultural Sociality
Part I: A Transcultural Historical Phenomenon and its Implications for Literary Theory
Chapter One: Platonic Poetics and Axial Cultural Revolutions
Chapter Two: Literary Theory and the Task of Accounting for Axial Hermeneutics
Part II: Neurocognitive Underpinnings and Evolutionary Prehistories of Significance Discernment and Ethical Sense
Chapter Three: Literary Significance's Prehistory: Attentiveness, Affectivity, and Sociality
Chapter Four: Literary Significance's Prehistory: Trust, Subjectivity, and Symbolic Culture
Chapter Five: Affective Dissonance, Moral Sociality, and the Prehistory of Ethical Sense
Conclusion: Life Sciences, Cultural Studies, and Literary History
Bibliography
Index
Introduction: Literary Signification and Biocultural Sociality
Part I: A Transcultural Historical Phenomenon and its Implications for Literary Theory
Chapter One: Platonic Poetics and Axial Cultural Revolutions
Chapter Two: Literary Theory and the Task of Accounting for Axial Hermeneutics
Part II: Neurocognitive Underpinnings and Evolutionary Prehistories of Significance Discernment and Ethical Sense
Chapter Three: Literary Significance's Prehistory: Attentiveness, Affectivity, and Sociality
Chapter Four: Literary Significance's Prehistory: Trust, Subjectivity, and Symbolic Culture
Chapter Five: Affective Dissonance, Moral Sociality, and the Prehistory of Ethical Sense
Conclusion: Life Sciences, Cultural Studies, and Literary History
Bibliography
Index